February 26, 2025
SINGAPORE – The search for the plane of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has begun in the Indian Ocean, in what is likely the final attempt to find the aircraft that disappeared 11 years ago.
US- and UK-based private marine exploration company Ocean Infinity’s deep-water support vessel Armada 7806 has arrived at the new search zone about 1,500km off the coast of Perth over the weekend, Australian and British media reported on Feb 25.
British newspaper The Telegraph reported that autonomous underwater vehicles were deployed from the ship within hours of its arrival at the site and have started doing detailed scans of the ocean floor.
The Armada will be searching in an area spanning 15,000 sq km for six weeks, where it will “pay extra attention to four hot spots”, where some researchers have suggested the remains of the Boeing 777 aircraft may be located, Australia’s 9News reported.
Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said on Feb 25 that Ocean Infinity has been given “principal approval” to embark on the search although the government has yet to ink a contract with the company.
“We are still finalising the details for the contract to be signed,” he told the Malaysian media, adding that Ocean Infinity has given assurances that the search will produce positive results.
Still, the search is expected to be complicated due to the topography of the ocean floor as well as the weather.
In December 2024, Mr Loke said Ocean Infinity had been tasked with resuming the undersea search for the plane’s wreckage.
The contract is based on a “no find, no fee” principle, meaning the government will not pay if nothing is found.
Should the wreckage be found, Ocean Infinity is seeking a US$70 million (S$94 million) fee, similar to that proposed in 2018.
The latest effort is a show of the government’s commitment to providing closure for the families of MH370 passengers, said Mr Loke in December 2024.
On March 8, 2014, the flight took off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members. The plane later vanished and was never seen again.
After it disappeared, Malaysia, China and Australia conducted a joint search for the wreckage in a 120,000 sq km area in the southern Indian Ocean.
But the countries ended their joint search in January 2017 after no significant findings were made.
Ocean Infinity’s first search effort, which started in January 2018 in a 25,000 sq km area in the southern Indian Ocean, ended in June 2018 without results.
The mysterious disappearance of MH370 was a major point of contention in Malaysia-China relations.
In March 2014, 200 families of Chinese passengers aboard MH370 staged a rare protest outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing, two hours after learning that none of the passengers on the doomed flight had survived.
In the months that followed, there were also calls for boycotts of Malaysian products and travel to the country.
- Eileen Ng is a correspondent on The Straits Times’ breaking news team, covering the latest international developments and writing up quirky and trending stories.