Malaysian government agrees in principle to resume “no find, no fee” search for MH370
December 24, 2024
Texas-based marine robotics firm, Ocean Infinity, has proposed a “no find, no fee” proposal to continue searching for the remains of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which is believed to have crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean ten years ago.
The Boeing 777 flight, which had taken off from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia bound for Beijing in China, disappeared on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board.
The proposal marks the second “no fee, no find” agreement that Malaysia’s government has agreed to with Malaysia’s transport minister Anthony Loke approving in principle a US$70 million deal with the marine exploration firm to find the aircraft. The fee will only be paid when the wreckage is found with Loke explaining that negotiations over specific terms were expected to be finalised in early 2025. Ocean Infinity’s 2018 search for MH370’s wreckage ended unsuccessfully after 90 days.
While the 2018 search focused on a zone identified by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, with Ocean Infinity’s CEO Oliver Plunkett saying at the time that he believed his company’s “system of multiple autonomous vehicles working simultaneously is well suited to the task at hand.”
Ocean Infinity can use up to eight Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) operating in depths up to 6,000m. Equipped with side scan sonar, multi-beam echosounder, sub-bottom profiler, HD cameras, the AUVs ability to operate untethered allows them to go deeper and collect higher quality data.
The new search is expected to cover a 15,000 sq.km. area in the southern Indian Ocean, based on new data, with Loke noting that finding the wreckage would help give closure to the families of those onboard. Ocean Infinity has reportedly indicated that January-April is the best time to resume the search.
