Malaysia has approved a fresh attempt to solve one of aviation’s most enduring mysteries, more than eleven years after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished with 239 passengers and crew on board.
The Boeing 777 disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Contact was lost less than an hour after take-off, following a routine sign-off from the cockpit: “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero.”
Military radar later tracked the aircraft making an abrupt turn west over the Malay Peninsula before heading south over the Indian Ocean. Investigators believe it continued flying for several hours until it ran out of fuel and crashed in a remote stretch of sea.
Despite the most expensive search in aviation history, involving dozens of ships and aircraft from more than twenty countries and costing around £120 million, no trace of the main wreckage has ever been found.
Only a few fragments, including a flaperon washed up on Réunion Island, have been recovered and confirmed as belonging to the aircraft.
The new operation, due to begin on 30 December, will be conducted by the Texas-based marine robotics company Ocean Infinity under the same “no find, no fee” terms agreed in 2018.
The company will scan a refined 5,800-square-mile area of the southern Indian Ocean using autonomous underwater vehicles.
Malaysia’s transport ministry described the zone as having “the highest probability” of containing the wreckage, based on updated analysis of satellite data, ocean drift modelling and previous surveys.
Ocean Infinity briefly searched earlier this year but suspended operations in March because of adverse weather. The company is funding the mission itself and will receive a reward of approximately £52 million only if the aircraft is located.
For families of the victims, many of whom have gathered every year on the anniversary of the disappearance, the announcement brings cautious hope mixed with familiar pain.
“We have waited too long for answers,” said Grace Nathan, a Malaysian lawyer whose mother Anne Daisy was on the flight. “Every new search feels like reopening a wound, but we cannot stop until we know what happened.”
The cause of the deviation remains unknown. Official investigations found no evidence of terrorist involvement or deliberate action by the pilots, though speculation has persisted for more than a decade.
If successful, the mission could finally bring closure to relatives still searching for the truth about flight MH370.
