The new search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has hit a major setback, with the Kuala Lumpur Transport Minister announcing that it has been suspended until the end of this year.
The Boeing 777 plane with 239 people on board disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Despite the largest search in aviation history, the airliner was never found.
More than a decade later, a new search for the missing Boeing has raised new hopes that the wreckage will finally be found. In any case, relatives of the missing people had high hopes that the tragedy would be solved.
However, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook has now told reporters that the team has “stopped the operation for the time being,” adding that “they will resume the search later this year.”
The Malaysian minister’s comments came just a month after authorities said the search had resumed after previous failed attempts covering vast swathes of the Indian Ocean.
The initial search, led by Australia, covered an area of 120,000 square kilometres in the Indian Ocean over three years. However, no trace of the aircraft was found except for a few minor fragments.
“It is not the season”
Ocean Infinity, a marine research firm based in Southampton and the US, conducted an unsuccessful search in 2018 before agreeing to launch new search operations this year.
In a statement during an event at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Wednesday, Loke Siew Fook explained that “it is not the season.” When news of the search resumption broke in February, Loke Siew Fook said Ocean Infinity teams had “collated all the data and are convinced that the current search area is more credible.”
The team has embarked on a deep-sea search despite the lack of a finalised deal with the Malaysian government. According to The Telegraph, autonomous underwater vehicles were launched from the ship hours after it arrived on site, beginning to scan the seabed.
The autonomous underwater vehicles are controlled via satellite communications from Ocean Infinity’s control centre in Southampton. The deep-sea support vessel Armada 7806 was reportedly planning to investigate three or four “hotspots” where researchers believe the aircraft may be located.
