Families of flight MH370 passengers urge Malaysia to extend search

Families of those aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on Sunday urged the Malaysian government to extend a contract it signed with deep-sea exploration firm Ocean Infinity to continue a search for the aircraft that disappeared 12 years ago.

The Boeing 777 was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, becoming one of the world’s enduring aviation mysteries.

Multiple search operations for the plane have been conducted in the southern Indian Ocean since then but all have proved fruitless.

Malaysia in March last year agreed to allow Ocean Infinity to resume the hunt under a “no find, no fee” principle, with the firm to be paid $70 million only if the wreckage was successfully located.

Malaysia’s Air Accident Investigation Bureau said on Sunday, however, that operations had not yielded any findings so far, after two search phases covering 28 days and around 7,571 square kilometres (2,923 square miles) of seabed.

Operations were periodically disrupted by weather and sea conditions, with the second phase ending on January 23, the AAIB said.

“The government remains committed to keeping the families informed and will continue to provide updates as appropriate,” it said.

Voice370, a group representing families of those onboard, said it was unlikely for Ocean Infinity to resume the search before its contract ends in June, due to the coming winter months in the southern hemisphere and deteriorating sea conditions.

It urged the government to grant any request for Ocean Infinity to extend its agreement, as well as expand the same terms to other interested exploration firms.

“A simple addendum extending the contract period without altering the core terms of the agreement would allow the search to continue without delay,” it said.

Ocean Infinity had conducted prior searches for the plane but failed to find substantive wreckage.

Malaysian investigators in a 2018 report drew no conclusion about what happened aboard the flight, but did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.

-Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Sonali Paul/Reuters