Malaysia has extended its agreement with deep-sea exploration company Ocean Infinity to search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 by one year, the transport ministry said on Monday.On March 8, 2014, the Boeing 777 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board, becoming one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries. Multiple search operations for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean proved fruitless.Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said that the extension period is 12 months, from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, to allow Ocean Infinity to complete the search of the remaining 7,428.54 square kilometers area. The company will be paid $70 million only if the wreckage is found.“This decision reflects the government’s continued and unwavering commitment to providing relief to the next of kin of the passengers of flight MH370,” Locke said in a statement.The new contract commitment means the search will be suspended between November 2026 and April 2027.Ocean Infinity had previously been searching for the plane until 2018. Last year, the company signed a new agreement with Malaysia to resume the search over an area of 15,000 square kilometers, which began in March but was suspended weeks later due to bad weather.Locke added that the latest extension takes into account Ocean Infinity’s new commercial contract commitments, which will require the search’s primary assets to be temporarily redeployed to another location between November 2026 and April 2027.The new search is conducted under the same terms and conditions that Malaysia agreed with Ocean Infinity in 2024, with the target area assessed to have the highest probability of finding the aircraft. The exact location has not yet been given.
MH370 remains one of aviation’s biggest mysteries
More than 30 pieces of suspected aircraft debris have been collected on the coast of Africa and islands in the Indian Ocean, but only three wing fragments have been confirmed to be from MH370. A 495-page report released in July 2018 said the Boeing 777’s control systems were likely deliberately manipulated to cause it to veer off course, but investigators were unable to determine who was responsible.Analysis of satellite data shows the plane likely crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, off the coast of western Australia. However, two major searches failed to uncover any significant wreckage. The first search, which cost about A$200 million, was called off in January 2017.The inability to find the crash site has given rise to numerous conspiracy theories, ranging from mechanical error to stranger explanations such as alien abduction. In recent years, some aviation experts have said the most likely explanation is that the plane was deliberately deviated from its course by an experienced pilot.The Malaysian government announced in December 2024 that the search would resume under Ocean Infinity’s new proposal. The search began in March but was suspended weeks later due to bad weather.
