Malaysia set to discuss new MH370 search proposal with seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity

By Annette Gartland on March 4, 2024

Malaysia’s Transport Minister, Anthony Loke, said at the MH370 10th anniversary remembrance event in Kuala Lumpur that the ministry was ready to invite the American seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity to Malaysia to discuss a ‘no find, no fee’ proposal for a new search for the missing plane.

“We are waiting for Ocean Infinity to provide a suitable date and I will meet them any time that they are ready to come to Malaysia,” Loke said yesterday (Sunday).

Loke promised that he would do everything possible to gain Cabinet approval to sign a new contract with Ocean Infinity for the search for MH370 to resume as soon as possible. He said he was confident that the Cabinet would give its approval.

He said that, as transport minister, and representing the Malaysian government, he was at the MH370 remembrance event not just to express the government’s solidarity with the next of kin but “as a commitment and a promise that the search will go on”.

Flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board. It was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

While some debris has been found that the Malaysian authorities say is from the missing plane, neither MH370 nor its voice and data recorders have been located.

Loke said the Malaysian government would do everything possible to solve the mystery of MH370 – “the biggest aviation mystery in the world” – once and for all.

The new proposal was presented to Loke by V.P.R. Nathan, whose wife, Anne Daisy, was a passenger on MH370.

It will now be studied by experts at the transport ministry. Malaysian transport ministers have long said that there needed to be “new credible evidence” before the government could proceed with another search.

Ocean Infinity says in its proposal that there is new credible information.

In 2018, Ocean Infinity spent more than three months searching for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. The company scoured, and collected data from, more than 112,000 square kilometres of ocean floor, which is far in excess of the initial 25,000-square-kilometre target and almost the same area as was examined in the previous search over a period of two and a half years.

The previous Australian-led underwater search was suspended on January 17, 2017, after an area spanning 120,000 square kilometres was scoured.

In its previous search, Ocean Infinity used a leased Norwegian vessel, Seabed Constructor, and its own Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), capable of operating in depths up to 6,000 metres.

It now has new robotic vessels that can be operated completely remotely, with no crew on board.

V.P.R. Nathan’s daughter Grace Subathirai Nathan welcomed the new development.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Grace said. “It’s at least some progress from where we’ve been; it’s been at a standstill for so many years …

“We hope that the search resumes soon and we hope that this search is the last. We hope the plane is found.”

Jacquita Gonzales, whose husband Patrick Gomes was an in-flight supervisor on MH370, said: “I’m happy. It’s good news, a step in the right direction for us to have closure and to find the plane.”

Gonzales emphasised the next of kin’s concern about making aviation safe.

Grace Subathirai Nathan said during yesterday’s event: “We, the next of kin of the passengers and crew on MH370, strongly believe that the search for this plane extends far beyond our long suffering, our need for closure, and extends to the greater question of aviation safety.

“Every time each and every one of you or your loved ones take to the skies you should have some guarantee, some confidence, that your plane or the plane your loved ones are on will not vanish into thin air.”

American amateur investigator Blaine Alan Gibson, who has found, retrieved, and/or handed in 22 pieces of debris, said he supported Ocean Infinity’s proposal, but wants to see more areas of the southern Indian Ocean searched if the plane is not found.

Any search should include the area from 28.3°S to 33.2°S, which is the area suggested by oceanographer Charitha Pattiaratchi from the University of Western Australia in Perth, Gibson says.

“This area suggested by Professor Pattiaratchi includes Broken Ridge, which is a seafloor feature of canyons and trenches at the foot of a subsea slope,” Gibson added.

Gibson says Pattiaratchi’s drift analysis guided him in his search and led directly to the recovery of 22 debris items. Gibson found seven pieces himself and the other 15 were found by local people.

“Of those 22 pieces, 18 are in the official Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team report,” Gibson said. “Two more have already been delivered to Malaysia, one is still in Madagascar, ready to be sent to Malaysia, and one is in the process of being handed in.”

The full safety investigation report released by the Malaysian International Civil Aviation Organisation Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370 on July 30, 2018, stated that 27 significant pieces of debris had been recovered and examined at the time it was produced. Five more pieces of debris are mentioned in a separate Annex 13 document.

The report states that three items of debris – the flaperon that was found on Reunion island, and is still in the possession of the French authorities, a part of the right outboard flap, and a section of the left outboard flap – have been confirmed to be from MH370.

Seven pieces of debris, including some cabin interior items, were determined to be “almost certainly” from the plane.

The report adds that eight pieces of debris are “highly likely” to be from MH370.

V.P.R. Nathan (left), whose wife, Anne Daisy, was a passenger on MH370, presents Ocean Infinity’s new proposal to Anthony Loke during the MH370 10th anniversary remembrance event.

UPDATE

In May, Ocean Infinity made a presentation about its new ‘no find, no fee’ search proposal to Anthony Loke, senior transport ministry officials, and representatives of other government agencies.

Loke said the matter would need to be presented to the Cabinet before an agreement was finalised and he anticipated that the process would take about three months to complete.