Malaysia in talks over new search for flight MH370 10 years after disappearance
Malaysia’s government has signalled it plans to renew the search for the lost Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, 10 years after it disappeared.
It is in talks with the US marine robotics company Ocean Infinity to discuss a new search operation. The company says it is willing and able to return to the search, and has submitted a proposal to the Malaysian government.
Families of passengers who were onboard MH370 called for a renewed search operation as they gathered ahead of the 10-year anniversary of its disappearance, saying answers were needed for the future of flight safety.
Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers, vanished from air traffic radar on 8 March 2014. Its disappearance sparked the largest ever search operation but the fate of the plane has never been resolved and remains one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
On Sunday hundreds of relatives and supporters gathered at a shopping centre near Kuala Lumpur to remember the missing. They lit 239 candles, one for each passenger lost on the flight.
Jacquita Gonzales, the wife of Patrick Gomes, an inflight supervisor who was onboard, said: “Every year as we approach 8 March, all that happened on that day, the memories, come back as if it was only yesterday. We relive the agonising call from Malaysian Airlines to say the plane has gone missing.”
She recalled being glued to the television, hoping for good news that was still yet to arrive. “The only way to solve this is to find the plane. That’s why it is important to search on. Don’t let it remain a mystery,” she told an audience on Sunday.
Grace Nathan, a Malaysian lawyer whose mother, Anne Daisy, was on the flight, said: “I have gone on but I haven’t moved on.”
She described experiencing life’s milestones without her mother present. Her father did not smile in her sister’s graduation photos, she said. At her wedding, she carried her mother’s photos on a bouquet of daisies, a reference to her mother’s name. She longed for her mother as she went through two difficult pregnancies.
Passengers’ family members, including Nathan, have campaigned tirelessly for the flight’s disappearance to be resolved, travelling the world to search for debris and raise awareness. Nathan recalled travelling to Madagascar, where relatives trained residents of local fishing villages to search for parts of the plane.
“We are doing this for the future of aviation history. MH370 is not history, it’s the future of all our aviation safety every time we take to the skies,” Nathan said.
Relatives questioned the commitment of the authorities to resolving the mystery. “Is the government interested at all in the truth and finding answers?” asked KS Narendran, whose wife, Chandrika, was onboard. “Sympathy and solidarity from those in power means something only, and only if, accompanied by actions to address the sources of pain in people,” he said in a video address.
“We wish to see action … Taking MH370 as an anomalous event and adopting a business as usual stance is to normalise a safety threat as an acceptable travel and business risk,” Narendran added.
An underwater search for the plane, which was coordinated by Malaysia, China and Australia, ended in January 2017 after Australian authorities had spent almost three years scouring 120,000 sq km in the southern Indian Ocean without success – an operation that cost AU$180m, paid for by Australia and Malaysia.
Ocean Infinity conducted a search for the aircraft in the Indian Ocean in 2018 after it struck a “no find, no fee” arrangement with the Malaysian government. The search was unsuccessful.
The chief executive of Ocean Infinity, Oliver Plunkett, said the company also wanted to resume the search and was hopeful it would happen this year.
“We remain interested in returning to the search for MH370 and are actively engaged in trying to make this happen,” he said in a statement. “We now feel in a position to be able to return to the search for missing aircraft MH370, and have submitted a proposal to the Malaysian government.
“We hope to get back to the search soon.”
Malaysia’s transport minister, Anthony Loke, said that “as far Malaysia is concerned it is committed to finding the plane … cost is not the issue”.
He told relatives at the gathering that he would meet officials from Ocean Infinity to discuss a new operation. “We are now awaiting for them to provide suitable dates and I hope to meet them soon,” he said.
Pieces of debris confirmed or thought to be from the aircraft have washed up on the shorelines of South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique and elsewhere. None have ultimately led to the discovery of the aircraft.
The flight was carrying 152 Chinese nationals and 50 from Malaysia, as well as passengers from Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine and the US.