A U.S. company stands to make
up to $70 million if it can find the wreckage or black boxes of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in three months.
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia — Malaysia’s government said it will pay U.S. company Ocean Infinity up to $70 million if it can find the wreckage or black boxes of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 within three months, in a renewed bid to solve the plane’s disappearance nearly four years ago.
Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said there was an 85 percent chance of finding the debris in a new 9,650-square-mile area — roughly the size of Vermont — identified by experts. The government signed a “no cure, no fee” deal with the Houston-based company to resume the hunt for the plane, a year after the official search by Malaysia, Australia and China in the southern Indian Ocean was called off.
The plane vanished March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people.
“The primary mission by Ocean Infinity is to identify the location of the wreckage and/or both of the flight recorders and present a considerable and credible evidence to confirm the exact location of the two main items,” he told a news conference.
If the mission is successful within three months, payment will be made based on the size of the area searched.
Ocean Infinity Chief Executive Oliver Plunkett said the search vessel Seabed Constuctor, which left the South African port of Durban last week, is expected to reach the southern Indian Ocean by Wednesday to begin the hunt.
He said eight autonomous underwater vehicles, which are drones fitted with high-tech cameras, sonars and sensors, will be dispatched to map the seabed at a faster pace.
Plunkett said the underwater drones can cover 463 square miles a day and complete the almost 10,000-square-mile search area within a month.