The Malaysian government announced Sunday that it is pushing for a renewed search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished nearly 10 years ago while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Flight MH370 was a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it disappeared on March 8, 2014.
The disappearance of the aircraft ranks among the world’s greatest aviation mysteries after Australia, China and Malaysia ended a fruitless $157-million search effort in January 2017.
Investigators in Malaysia have not ruled out the possibility that the commercial airline was deliberately taken off course, as debris confirmed and believed to have come from the plane has washed up on the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.
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A young child watches the Malaysia Airlines planes on the tarmac hopefully for the return of the missing flight, MH370 in Kuala Lumpur International Airport, outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,Tuesday, March 11, 2014. (Joshua Paul/NurPhoto/NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images)
On Sunday, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said Ocean Infinity, a U.S.-based firm that explores the seabed, had been invited to discuss the latest search proposal after two previous failed efforts.
“The Malaysian government is committed to the search (for MH370) and the search must go on,” Loke said at a remembrance event on Sunday.
The minister also said Malaysia would talk with Australia about cooperation in resuming the search once Ocean Infinity’s proposal is approved by the Malaysian government.
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A CASSA Malaysia president Dr. Jacob George shows the co-ordinates of where the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is believed to has crashed during a news conference on January 16, 2019 in Subang Jaya outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Mohd Samsul Mohd Said/Getty Images)
Ocean Infinity did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital on the matter.
One of the victims on the ill-fated flight was Anne Daisy, and her husband, V.P.R. Nathan, said the proposal from Ocean Infinity has a “no find, no fee” option, which he welcomed.
“We want the search to carry on, but we also have to be realistic,” he said. “We cannot expect the government to spend billions [on the search].”
The flight’s disappearance sparked a multiyear search that resulted in a confusing and convoluted series of revelations that have yet to turn up a solid conclusion of what happened. After three years, Malaysian authorities called off the search, and subsequent search efforts have remained short-lived.
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Malaysian Minister of Transport, Anthony Loke (C) looks at the Wing flap found on Pemba Island, Tanzania which has been identified a missing part of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 through unique part numbers traced to 9M-MRO during a commemoration event to mark the 5th anniversary of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on March 03, 2019. (Adli Ghazali/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
A Netflix documentary released in March 2020 examined the timeline of the plane’s disappearance, speaking with some of the more prominent voices and players involved in the response and search for the plane.
The documentary also revived some of the more outlandish theories about what happened to the plane.
Following its disappearance, the plane emitted several “pings” that London-based satellite firm Inmarsat recorded and tracked over the immediate six hours.
The pings allowed the company to confirm that the plane backtracked over Malaysia before the final ping somewhere over the Indian Ocean. After that, the mystery deepened. Inmarsat used the data to determine the plane flew south into the Indian Ocean rather than bank north over continental Asia.
In subsequent years, Blaine Gibson, a self-described hobbyist “adventurer,” found several pieces of the plane that washed up on islands around the Indian Ocean that airline authorities say were consistent with the Boeing 777. And they determined that as proof enough that the plane went down because no other plane has been reported missing in the intervening years. It’s the closest to a confirmation they believe the families will get.
Just last year, a retired fisherman claimed he found a large piece of the missing plane off the coast of Australia.
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Retired Australian fisherman Kit Olver said, in an interview with Sydney Morning Herald that he discovered the piece of the plane during a deep-sea fishing expedition when his trawler pulled up what appeared to be a wing.
He said he kept quiet for nine years but wanted to come forward with the information to help the families of those who were on board MH370.
Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Reuters contributed to this report.
