MH370 SEARCH TO RESUME AFTER A YEAR
Malaysia signs contract with US firm to restart hunt middle of this month
THE search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has resumed, a year after it was suspended.
The government and the United Statesbased exploration firm, Ocean Infinity Limited, yesterday signed a contract to continue the search.
The agreement was signed by Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) directorgeneral Datuk Seri Azharuddin Abdul Rahman and Ocean Infinity Limited chief executive officer Oliver Plunkett.
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the search operations would commence in an area covering 25,000sq km of the Indian Ocean by the middle of this month.
“The deal is on a ‘no cure, no fee’ basis whereby debris found within the first 5,000sq km will be paid US$20 million (RM82 million), for the subsequent 10,000sq km, US$ 30 million will be paid, and for another 10,000sq km, US$50 million will be paid.
“Beyond these areas, Ocean Infinity will be paid a total of US$70 million. However, the search must be completed within a 90-day time frame. The payment for the search will be borne by the government.”
He said Ocean Infinity’s mission was to identify the location of the wreckage or the debris field and/or black box recorders, flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR).
Norwegian research vessel, Seabed
Constructor, is on its way to the area identified by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) as the most likely crash site.
“It has on board 65 crew members, including two officers from the Royal Malaysian Navy as representatives of the Malaysian government.”
Malaysia, Australia and China ended the search in January last year.
Ocean Infinity, Liow said, would report to the MH370 Response Team headed by Azharuddin, Transport Ministry, Foreign Ministry and Communications and Multimedia Ministry officials.
“Agencies such as police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers will be monitoring the operations via an operations room established in the DCA premises.
“The team will update the victims’ families via text messages and emails, as well as on the MH370 website.
On March 8, 2014, MH370 with 239 people on board, mostly Chinese nationals, dropped off radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, setting off a search in the southern Indian Ocean.
After spending more than three years of scouring 120,000sq km of the Indian Ocean, only three fragments of MH370 were found. The fragments that washed up on western Indian Ocean shores included a 2m wing part, known as flaperon.
Liow said he had notified the victims’ next of kin of the new operations.
“We have informed them. We hope we would be able to find the wreckage to give them closure,” he said, adding that experts said there were 85 per cent probability of finding the aircraft.
A next of kin, Shin Kok Chau, thanked the government for not losing hope of finding the missing jet.
“I would like to thank Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the transport minister and agencies involved. This news is a relief and I hope this team will find something to give us some closure,” said the 42-year-old husband of victim Tan Ser Kuin.