Houston firm offers to search for MH370

A Houston company is negotiating to conduct a private search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, after three governments failed in a three-year, $160 million effort.

The Boeing 777-200ER is presumed to have crashed after it went missing March 8, 2014, with 239 people aboard, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation said Friday it is weighing several private offers to search for the plane, including one from Ocean Infinity, a Houston firm that surveys the ocean floor.

Ocean Infinity offered to search without payment unless the plane was found, but the offer is still being assessed and no agreement has been reached, according to the statement from Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the department’s director general.

Ocean Infinity’s spokesman didn’t immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.

The negotiations are somewhat confusing. Australia Transport Minister Darren Chester said Thursday that an agreement had been “accepted” between Malaysia and Ocean Infinity, but his confirmation was later contradicted by Rahman.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau led the search for the plane with Malaysia and China. Based on clues from satellite data, the search focused on a section of ocean floor the size of Pennsylvania, about 1,000 miles west of Perth.

In the years since, at least 18 pieces of the plane washed up on islands and parts of Africa.

The governments have acknowledged that a more promising area to search might be north of the previous search zone, in an area about the size of Vermont.