Will the mystery of missing flight MH370 ever be solved? Search resumes after Malaysia makes bombshell announcement
20 December 2024, 10:43
The hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is set to resume a decade after the ill-fated aircraft disappeared from radars.
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The Malaysian jet vanished on March 8, 2014, while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard.
All are now presumed dead following an extensive search spanning multiple oceans, with only a small amount of debris ever recovered, washing up on various beaches including those of French-speaking Reunion island.
Now, 10 years on from the tragedy, Malaysian authorities are set to resume the search for the missing Boeing 777 aircraft.
On Friday, Malaysia's transport minister, Anthony Loke, said a $70m (£56m) deal with US-based underwater exploration firm Ocean Infinity had been agreed in a last-ditch bid to find the missing aircraft.
The deal, which has been agreed in principle, is thought to form part of a "no find, no fee" arrangement, meaning Ocean Infinity will only get paid if the wreckage of the jet is found.
It comes after an initial 2014 search operation lasting more than two years and costing an estimated $150million failed to locate the aircraft.
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A similar, albeit shorter operation took place in 2018, with the team failing to locate the missing plane.
No bodies were ever found in the hunt for the wreckage, with the families of the 227 passengers and 12 crew aboard continuing to fight for answers.
The new search is set to cover a 15,000 sq km area of water located in the southern Indian Ocean.
"We hope this time will be positive," Loke said, adding that finding the wreckage would give closure to the families of those on board.
The disappearance sparked a host of conspiracy theories, with speculation swirling in recent years.
Early suggestions included that the plane's pilot had deliberately brought down the aircraft, others suggested the flight had been shot down by foreign military.
In October, experts suggested that an unknown signal which had previously been discounted in the investigation for the doomed airliner.
Previously, Dr Usama Kadri, professor of maths and engineering at Cardiff University, spoke of her belief that the signal from a mysterious boom was picked up by the Leeuiwn listening station.
She added that it could be the last trace of MH370.
In hopes of securing a permission to reinvestigate the crash in the hopes that wreckage can be found.
The signal came from the Seventh Arc, an area of the Indian Ocean where the MH370 was last detected by satellites.
Dr Kadri told the Sun: “If you allow a little bit longer, only tens of minutes more, there was a signal which came from the direction of the Seventh Arc and that signal was also highlighted by another[research] group.
"That was the only, the strongest signal actually, that was picked up from that direction.”
