Search for MH370 set to end in ‘days’

APRIVATE search for Flight MH370 will end in the coming days, an exploration firm said on Tuesday, some four years after the plane disappeared in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.

The Malaysia Airlines jet vanished in March 2014 with 239 people on board, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

No sign of it was found in a 120,000-square kilometre

Indian Ocean search zone and the Australian-led hunt, the largest in aviation history, was suspended in January last year.

After pressure from families, the Malaysian government struck a deal with US exploration firm Ocean Infinity to restart the search in January on condition it would only be paid if the Boeing 777 or its black boxes were found.

The firm stood to make up to $70 million if successful but found no sign of the airliner despite scouring the seabed with some of the world’s most high-tech search equipment. The hunt was officially meant to end in April but was extended. However, the new Malaysian government of Mahathir Mohamad announced last week the search was set to end.

Texas-based Ocean Infinity said in a statement on Tuesday that “its current search for the wreckage of ... Flight MH370 is shortly coming to an end”. A spokesman added that the hunt would end in the coming days, without giving a date.

Ocean Infinity Chief Executive Oliver Plunkett said the failure to find the wreckage was “extremely disappointing” but he hoped that his company would be able to “again offer our services in the search for MH370 in future”.