British team launches 'final search' for MH370, in bid to solve mystery of vanished plane 11 years on

25 February 2025, 08:50

A British ship has launched a search for the vanished Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, in what is likely to be the last mission 11 years after it disappeared.

Robotics company Ocean Infinity is looking for the wreckage of the plane on the seabed of the Indian Ocean, 1,200 miles off the western Australian city of Perth.

Its deep-water support vessel Armada 7806 deployed autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) at the search site. These are operated via satellite from a control room at the company's headquarters in Southampton.

If the wreckage is found, then Ocean Infinity can also send out remote vehicles to help recover it, also to be controled remotely.

The mission may represent the last hope of finding MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014 after taking off from Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur for a flight to Beijing.

Read more: A personnel of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue checks the map during a search in the Andaman sea area around northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island

Read more: Mysterious 'underwater boom' could finally reveal fate of flight MH370 after vanishing 10 years ago in Indian Ocean

Some 38 minutes after departure, the plane turned off its flight path and went westwards, before radar contact was lost.

All 239 people who were on board are presumed dead - but none have been found, and there is no conclusive explanation for what happened.

Two major search operations were launched, one from 2014-2017, and another in 2018, neither of which found the aircraft.

Several pieces of debris washed up onshore in the years following the disappearance, some of which were confirmed to belong to MH370.

10 years on - parents of passengers on MH370 are still seeking answers

Ocean Infinity was previously in talks with the Malaysian government for a £55 million payout if it found the wreckage, operating on a 'no-find, no-fee' basis.

But no agreement is thought to have been finalised, and the Telegraph reported that the company was operating on its own account.

Ocean Infinity founder Oliver Plunkett has described finding the wreckage as his life's ambition. A previous mission by the company in 2018 was abandoned without success.

This mission, due to last four weeks, will focus on an arc in the southern Indian Ocean where the plane is thought to have come down.

Ocean Infinity will scour up to four sites where the plane may have crashed, including one where earlier searches may not have given enough attention. The total search area is thought to be around 5,800 square miles.