Malaysia has agreed to the terms of an agreement with Ocean Infinity to resume the search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370, the transport minister said on Thursday.
Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook said the decision would allow search operations to begin on the seabed over an area of about 15,000 square kilometres in a new zone in the southern Indian Ocean on a “no-find, no-pay” basis.
Ocean Infinity will receive $70 million if the wreckage is successfully found, he said.
“The government is committed to continue the search operation and provide answers to the families of the MH370 passengers,” Loke also added.
In December, the government said it had agreed in principle to Ocean Infinity’s proposal to resume the search for MH370. The company conducted the last search, which ended in 2018.
About Flight MH370
Boeing 777 flight MH370 Kuala Lumpur-Beijing disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014. It had 12 crew members and 227 passengers on board, including 150 Chinese nationals, 50 Malaysian nationals, as well as citizens of France, Australia, Indonesia, India, the United States, Ukraine, Canada and other countries.
The plane last made contact about 40 minutes after taking off from the Malaysian capital. The transponder switched off as the plane entered Vietnamese airspace.
Military radar recorded that the plane veered off course and flew over northern Malaysia and the Andaman Sea before turning south and disappearing. Some of the airliner’s wreckage was dumped on the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.
A report on the disappearance of MH370 published in 2018 said the Boeing 777’s controls were probably deliberately altered to throw it off course, but investigators have been unable to determine who was responsible. The investigation found no suspicious points in the background, financial affairs, training or mental health of either the captain or co-pilot.
