Malaysia offers $70M to find missing airliner
U.S. vessel on new hunt for wreckage from 2014
An American search vessel is en route to the Southern Indian Ocean on a new hunt for the missing MH370 airliner under an agreement with the government of Malaysia that will pay up to $70 million if the company can find the wreckage of the plane or its two flight recorders within three months.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Wednesday that The Seabed Constructor, operated by the Houston company Ocean Infinity, will be searching in a 9,000 squaremile area with a crew of 65, and two members of the Royal Malaysia Navy. The ship left Durban, South Africa, last week to take advantage of improving weather in the search area beginning around Jan. 17.
The agreement for a 90-day search is on a “no find, no fee” basis, the transport minister told reporters in Putrajaya, Malaysia’s federal administrative center. Malaysia will pay up to $70 million if the company is able to find the wreckage of the plane and/ or both of the fight recorders.
Ocean Infinity Chief Executive Oliver Plunkett said eight autonomous underwater vehicles, which are drones fitted with cameras, sonars and sensors, will be dispatched to map the seabed. He said the drones can cover 463 square miles a day and complete the 9,600-square-mile area within a month.
“We have a realistic prospect of finding it,” he said. “While there can be no guarantees of locating the aircraft, we believe our system of multiple autonomous vehicles working simultaneously is well suited to the task at hand.”
The airliner went missing March 8, 2014, with 239 people aboard during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. For unknown reasons, it suddenly shifted course along the scheduled route and headed south over the Indian Ocean.
The plane’s electronics stopped signaling early in the flight. But the plane is presumed to have stayed in the air more than seven hours, until it ran out of fuel, based on electronic signals.
More than 500 days after the crash, a piece of the wing called a flaperon was the first confirmed debris to wash up, on the island of La Reunion, in July 2015.
At least 18 pieces of the plane eventually were recovered from beaches in Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania.
The last search, mounted by the governments of Australia, Malaysia and China, lasted nearly three years and cost $160 million before it ended last January.
The new search will focus on an area about the size of Vermont that is adjacent to the area already searched and which experts called promising after the official search ended.
The minister said the team will update the families of those involved by text and email and will update the progress of the mission on the official website.