The world may finally learn what happened with Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which vanished with 239 people on board more than 10 years ago.
The Malaysian government has agreed in principle to resume the search for the plane to provide the families of the missing with an answer.
The Boeing 777 went missing on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
It lost contact with air traffic control less than an hour after takeoff, when the plane was over the South China Sea, and was never seen again.
What happened to it remains one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries as two major searches failed to come up with any significant findings.
Transport minister Anthony Loke has now announced that a US-based private marine exploration company has been tasked with resuming the undersea search for the wreckage.
The government is currently negotiating the terms of the contract with Ocean Infinity that will be finalised in early 2025.
The proposal is based on a ‘no find, no fee’ principle. This means that the government will only pay if the wreckage is actually discovered.
The firm would receive $70 million if wreckage found is substantive, it was confirmed.
‘The Cabinet has agreed in principle to accept Ocean Infinity’s proposal to resume the search for MH370’s wreckage in a new search area estimated at 15,000 sq km based on the no-find-no-fee principle,’ Loke said.
He stressed that the latest effort is a show of the government’s commitment to provide closure for the families of MH370 passengers and crew.
More Trending
Ocean Infinity will be searching within a 15,000 sq km area off the coast of Western Australia.
Satellite data analysis has previously showed that the plane likely crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.
No precise location of the new search area was given.
More than 150 Chinese passengers were on the flight. Others included 50 Malaysians as well as citizens of France, Australia, Indonesia, India, the United States, Ukraine and Canada, among others.
Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.
