Malaysia to resume search for flight MH370 that went missing 10 years ago with 239 people on board

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The search for the ill-fated Malaysian Airline flight, MH 370, is all set to restart following a "credible proposal" presented by a United States (US)-based ocean exploration firm that identifies a fresh search area in the southern Indian Ocean. The aircraft mysteriously vanished 10 years ago with 239 people on board.

The search was called off in 2018 after an extensive operation which lasted for four years, during which multiple wreckage parts, were washed off the shores of French Reunion Island, were found. However, the final resting place of the main wreckage was never located in the original search area.

The new search proposal

The proposal adheres to a "No find, no fee" structure, which means that Malaysia would only incur costs if the wreckage of flight MH370 is located.

The new search area outlines a search plan for a 15,000 square kilometre (sq km)-zone off the coast of Western Australia. A Texas-based marine robotics company, which previously claimed that they have scientific evidence of the missing flight's final resting place, submitted a proposal to the Malaysian government over the new search operation.

On Tuesday, Malaysia's Transport Minister Anthony Loke confirmed in the Parliament that advanced talks with the firm, Ocean Infinity, are on over the search operation. While talking to the media late on November 7, he again confirmed the plans to reopen the search for flight MH370. According to transport minister Loke, the proposal is in the final stages of approval and an announcement regarding the new search operations will be made soon after the cabinet nod.

"Based on the latest information and analysis from experts and researchers, Ocean Infinity's search proposal is credible and can be considered by the Malaysian Government as the flight's official registrar. The terms and costs requested are in the same draft agreement is currently being negotiated between the government and Ocean Infinity. Should it be finalised, the cabinet approval will be required, and I will make a public announcement soon," said Loke.

Maped location at Reunion island where the first wreckage was found - investigation report screenshot.

Wreckage parts found so far

The parts of the missing aircraft wreckage were found at multiple locations, including the French Reunion Island, where a flaperon was discovered on July 29, 2015.

Following the discovery of the flaperon, multiple individuals started to gain interest in combing the coasts of the countries near Reunion Island. This led to the discovery of multiple parts of the aircraft wreckage. A horizontal stabiliser panel was found on the Paluma sandbank in Vilankulo on the Mozambique coast in February 2016. This was followed by an engine nose cowling segment which was found in Mossel Bay on the South Africa coast a month later. A main cabin interior panel was also found on Rodrigues Island on Marautiaus coast the same month while another wing flap was discovered on Pemba Island on the Zanzibar coast in June 2016. Three months later, unconfirmed debris, including panels were later found in Sainte-Luce on the Madagaskar coast, followed by the discovery of a large piece of wreckage, which was found washed up on Farkhar, one of the islands on the Seychelles coast.

Timeline:

2014

March 8: Flight MH370, a B777-200 aircraft, departs from Kuala Lumpur at 12.41 am local time to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew onboard. Of the 239 passengers onboard the ill-fated flight, 153 were from China, followed by 50 from Malaysia, seven from Indonesia, six from Australia, five from India,
four from France, three from the United States of America, and two each from Canada, New Zealand and Ukraine, while one each from the Netherlands, Russia and Taiwan. The plane is last seen on military radar at 2.14 am, when it was heading west over the Strait of Malacca. Half an hour later, the airline announces that it has lost contact with the plane, which was to land at its destination at 6.30 am.

March 9: Search efforts focus on the Gulf of Thailand. It is reported that two passengers were travelling on stolen European passports, prompting concerns that terrorists might have been responsible for the incident. Authorities later clear all passengers of any link to terrorism.

March 10: Search efforts scour an area within a 50-nautical-mile radius of the aircraft's last known position and the northern Strait of Malacca. A Vietnamese plane had spotted a rectangular object that was thought to be one of the missing plane's doors, but a search in the Andaman Sea finds no wreckage. Evidence begins to mount that the flight had headed west after contact with air traffic controllers was lost.

Possible source of floating debris based on ocean currents map - investigation report screenshot

March 15: Malaysia's Prime Minister, Najib Razak, says MH370 was "deliberately" diverted and continued flying for more than six hours after contact with the ground was lost. Authorities expand their search for the missing jet from Central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean, and search the homes of the pilots, Zaharie Ahmad Shah and Fariq Abdul Hamid.

March 24: Family members of passengers onboard the flight march to the Malaysian embassy in Beijing demanding answers, after authorities say they have concluded that the missing plane crashed in the Indian Ocean, leaving all 239 people onboard. Many of the families learn the news via a text message that stated: "We have to assume beyond all reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and none of those on board survived."

April 24: The search and rescue phase becomes a search and recovery operation. A few days later, the search operation moves to an underwater phase, using an autonomous underwater vehicle and a bathymetry survey covering an area around 692 km long and 80 km wide.

June 26: Australian authorities issue a preliminary report in which they theorise that the plane flew on autopilot after a "catastrophic" event led to the crew becoming incapacitated, possibly owing to oxygen starvation.

August 28: Australia's Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, says the aircraft "might have turned south a little earlier than we have previously expected", as it is announced that airline staff tried to contact the flight crew by satellite phone after the plane disappeared from radar.

September 19: It is announced that the underwater search will resume in a remote southern stretch of the Indian Ocean by September-end.

Possible mapped routes of MH370 based on satellite data - investigation report screenshot

October: The new underwater search involves ships dragging sonar devices called towfish through the water about 100 m (330ft) above the seabed to hunt for wreckage. The towfish, which transmit data in real time, are dragged slowly through the water by thick cables up to 10-km long. If something of interest is spotted on the sonar, the towfish will be hauled up and fitted with a video camera, then lowered again.

2015

January: Senior Boeing 777 captain Simon Hardy suggests the missing aircraft's final resting place is in the Indian Ocean just outside the far south- western edge of the core search area. On January 28, Malaysia officially declares the disappearance an accident and its passengers and crew presumed dead, 327 days after it vanished. It concludes that the aircraft exhausted its fuel "over a defined area of the southern Indian Ocean".

March 7: Malaysia's transport minister says that if the undersea search fails to find anything by the end of May, investigators will re-examine data and come up with a new plan. The Australian Government also says that the search of the priority zone, where the flight is thought to have gone down, is likely to be completed by the end of May.

July 23: Martin Dolan, the chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, says the plane "will be found within the next year". Two vessels continue search operations in the southern Indian Ocean, with more than 21,000 of the 46,332 sq miles (120,000 sq km) search area already covered.

August 5: Malaysia's Prime Minister, Najib Razak, says a wing part that washed up on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean came from missing MH370, confirming the first trace of the plane since it vanished. Authorities in France, the US and Australia stopped short of confirming Malaysia's claim. The same month, France launches a renewed air and sea search around Réunion in the hope of finding more debris. The search ends after 10 days. The Maldives also joins a regional search for wreckage following reports of islanders spotted unidentified debris. However, this debris is later confirmed to be unrelated to MH370.

2016

March: The Australian Government says two pieces of debris made in separate discoveries in Mozambique are "highly likely to have come from MH370" after analysis finds both pieces to be consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft. Darren Chester, the minister for infrastructure and transport, says the discovery of debris on the east coast of Africa "is consistent with drift modelling... and further affirms our search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean". He adds there are 25,000 sq km of the underwater search area still to be searched.

May 16: The Australian authority leading the search for MH370 says there is a "decreasing possibility" that the missing plane will be found. More than 105,000 sq km of seafloor in the southern Indian Ocean has been searched as on May 11, leaving a remaining search area of just 15,000 sq km. Several pieces of debris found on the shorelines of South Africa, Mauritius and Mozambique are believed to be from the missing plane.

September: It is confirmed that a large piece of debris discovered on the island of Pemba, off the coast of Tanzania, in June was from MH370.

October: A piece of an aircraft wing found on Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island, is identified as belonging to the missing plane, Malaysian and Australian officials say. The piece of wing flap (flaperon) was found in May, and subsequently analysed by experts at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. So far, none of the debris has helped narrow down the precise location of the main underwater wreckage. Investigators need to find that in order to locate the flight data recorders that could help explain why the plane veered so far off course.

Flaperon found on French Reunion island - screenshot from the Investigation report

December: The families of those lost aboard MH370 comb the beaches of Madagascar in the hope of finding more debris from the plane.

2017

January: The underwater search for missing MH370 comes to an end, a joint statement co-signed by the transport ministers of Malaysia, China and Australia states. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau had searched a 120,000 sq km area in the southern Indian Ocean, a remote expanse of ocean west of Perth, with waves sometimes between 15 and 20 metres and depths of up to 6 km, for nearly two-and-a-half years.

October 3: Australian investigators deliver their final report on the disappearance of MH370, saying the inability to bring closure for victims' families was a "great tragedy" and "almost inconceivable" in the modern age. The search, despite finding no new evidence of MH370's whereabouts, helped to eliminate a large stretch of ocean as the location. The report stated that the understanding of MH370's location "is better now than it has ever been".

2018

January: The search for MH370 resumes after US seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity charters a Norwegian ship under a "No find, no fee" arrangement with Malaysia. A research ship leaves South Africa, bound for a search area off the coast of Perth.

May: Ocean Infinity expands its search, having exhausted a 25,000-km "priority area" identified by Australian experts as MH370's most likely resting place.

July: An official investigation report is released in Malaysia. It concludes that the plane was manually turned around in mid-air, rather than being under the control of autopilot, and that "unlawful interference by a third party" could not be ruled out. However, it dismisses theories that had suggested the pilot and first officer brought the plane down in a suicide mission, and also rules out mechanical failure as a cause.