The Malaysian government has agreed in principle to Ocean Infinity’s proposal for a new search for MH370. The transport ministry is negotiating the terms and conditions of the agreement, which is expected to be finalised in early 2025.

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

On December 20, Malaysia’s transport minister, Anthony Loke, announced that, on December 13, the Cabinet had agreed in principle to accept the proposal from US-based Ocean Infinity “to proceed with seabed search operations to locate the wreckage of flight MH370 in a new area estimated at 15,000 square kilometres in the southern Indian Ocean”.

He said the endeavour would be based on the “no find, no fee” principle. This means that the Malaysian government will only be required to pay Ocean Infinity if the company finds the wreckage of MH370.

The CEO of Ocean Infinity, Oliver Plunkett, said: “After a long wait, transport minister Anthony Loke’s statement is great news.

“We look forward to sharing further updates in the new year once we’ve finalised the details and the team gets ready to go.”

The association that represents families of passengers and crew aboard flight MH370, Voice 370, said it welcomed the Malaysian government’s announcement of a renewed search for MH370 in partnership with Ocean Infinity.

The support group said it was grateful to the Malaysian government and Anthony Loke for their commitment to the search for the missing plane and passengers, and finding answers to what led to the disappearance of MH370.

“Since their initial search in 2018, Ocean Infinity has consistently shown a strong willingness to undertake a further search for MH370,” Voice 370 said.

“We gather that the company has followed this up with thorough due diligence, analysing all available data, and alternative scenarios proposed by independent researchers and recommendations on potential search areas.”

Voice 370 said the next of kin were encouraged by Ocean Infinity’s readiness to deploy its advanced fleet, including sophisticated vessels, AUVs, and cutting-edge imaging technologies.

“The significance of this renewed search cannot be overstated,” Voice 370 said. “For the families of passengers, the scientific community, and global civil aviation safety, it offers renewed hope for long-awaited answers and closure.”

The group added: “If these efforts lead to safer air travel for the global public, the search and its successful conclusion will have been profoundly worthwhile.

“We, the next of kin, have endured over a decade of uncertainty, and we hope that the terms of the renewed search are finalised at the earliest and the decks are cleared for the search to begin.

“We continue to hope that our wait for answers is met.”

Loke said the proposed new search area identified by Ocean Infinity was based on the latest information and data analyses conducted by experts and researchers. He added that the company had committed to beginning the new search as soon as the contract was signed.

“The company’s proposal is credible and merits further examination by the Malaysian government, as the state of registration for MH370,” Loke said.

“This decision reflects the government’s commitment to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of MH370 passengers.”

Loke said the contract for the search was being brought to the Malaysian attorney-general’s chambers for vetting before being finalised and signed.

Ocean Infinity is seeking a US$70 million fee if the wreckage is found. This is similar to the fee proposed for an earlier search in 2018.

A slide presented at the 10th anniversary remembrance event.

In its previous search, the company 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.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

UPDATE 9/1/2025: Ocean Infinity’s robotic vessel Armada 78 08, which had been due to be used to search for MH370 once a contract with Malaysia was signed, was earlier moored in the port of Singapore, but then left for Mauritius, and is now en route for Cape Town, South Africa.

Today (Thursday) Airline Ratings editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said in a special edition of Daily Airline News that Armada 78 08 was now “obviously not going to be part of the search”.

Armada 78 06 was still moored in Singapore, Thomas said, but it had not been designated as the vessel to search for MH370.

Thomas urged the Malaysian government to sign a contract with Ocean Infinity as quickly as possible.

Malaysia had a responsibility to find MH370, Thomas said. “It’s on a no find, no fee basis. Nothing could be simpler … They must sign the contract. We must find MH 370 …”

American amateur investigator Blaine Alan Gibson, who has found, retrieved, and/or handed in 22 pieces of debris, said today: “Accepting Ocean Infinity’s generous no find, no fee offer is a no-brainer for Malaysia if they want the plane found. Malaysia should have signed the contract months ago so that the search would be underway now.

“The Austral summer search season runs from November to May. Ocean Infinity presented its proposal to Malaysia seven months ago. Almost half of the search season has now passed during this period of politicians’ and bureaucrats’ deliberation and delay.”

Gibson had earlier said he very much welcomed Loke’s announcement.

“I hope that the search will start soon enough and that the contract will be approved fast enough and be of a long enough duration to allow Ocean Infinity to search until the plane is found,” Gibson told Changing Times just after the announcement.

The indications are that Ocean Infinity would search between latitudes 33°S to 36°S and Loke said that the company’s contract with the Malaysian government would cover a period of 18 months.

Gibson says he supports Ocean Infinity’s proposal, but, if the plane is not found between latitudes 33°S to 36°S, he would like to see the search extended to between about 28.3°S and 36.5°S.

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 (UWA) in Perth, Gibson says.

Gibson and Pattiaratchi argue that any new search should not be focused too narrowly along the 7th Arc.

“We hope that Ocean Infinity will take notice of the UWA drift analysis and search wider this time,” Gibson said.

The combined analyses by researchers from the UWA and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation put the possible crash site between 28.3 and 36.5°S.

“It’s of course up to Ocean Infinity to set its priorities,” Gibson said. “I happen to think that the plane is around Broken Ridge in the UWA area, or a little north of there, because that was what guided me successfully in my search for floating debris: the UWA drift analysis.

“However, it’s Ocean Infinity’s proposal, their ship, and their money, and they should search wherever they want, according to their priorities.”

Gibson would like to have seen the search commence in November, but says January to April is also a good time.

“It’s not too late to search the area between 28.3 and 36.5 degrees south,” he said. “That area can be searched between January and April. They could probably search into May, but after April it gets tougher.”

It’s in everyone’s interest to find MH370, Gibson says. “It’s in the families’ interest, of course. It’s in the interest of the flying public, to all of us who fly.

“It’s in the interest of aviation safety to find the plane and to know what happened so that we can work to ensure that this never happens again.”

Gibson says he is feeling positive now that the Malaysian Cabinet has agreed in principle to a new search, but is waiting to see what details are worked out.

“I am optimistic. I’m hopeful. I am happy about this so far, but I want to see that contract signed and I want to see Ocean Infinity’s ship on its way,” he said.

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 a blog post entitled ‘MH370: Will We Get Lucky This Time?’, K.S. Narendran, whose wife, Chandrika, was on board the plane when it disappeared, said he welcomed the decision to resume the search for MH370.

He added, however: “It is not clear what the Malaysian government’s constraints and compulsions were to not leave a ‘no find, no fee’ offer on the table all these years, considering that the government was stable, and there were no financial risks (that I am aware of) in a success-based fee payable to a search company.

“Indeed, with every passing year the impression grew that the Government was hopeful and happy if the MH370 matter simply faded away.”

Narendran says that, if the next search is unsuccessful, “it may be a time to examine and cast away certain assumptions, analysis and methods that have shaped the search area identification, and in the spirit of science, ask a new set of questions”.

If it is successful, he says, “it will be a testament to science, ingenuity and the persistence of a widely distributed set of people who spent many months over the years trying to tease out ‘secrets’ held by the limited flight related data”.

The original decision to search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean was based on calculations by the British company Inmarsat that were based on satellite pings – or handshakes – from MH370. Inmarsat said MH370 was most likely to be found along what became known as the 7th Arc.

Gibson has not relied on the Inmarsat data, but he disagrees with those who allege that it was faked.

“The Inmarsat data was not spoofed,” Gibson told Changing Times. “There’s really no way to spoof it and there’s really no reason that anyone would think to spoof it because it wasn’t even known or contemplated that it could have been used to track the aircraft in this way …

“I think that the Inmarsat data is honest. The Inmarsat data is reliable; however, it has its limitations. It’s dependent on different assumptions as to speed, course and altitude.”

There’s a margin of error built into the Inmarsat data, Gibson says. This, he says, is mainly related to the altitude of the plane.

“If any calculation is slightly wrong and the 7th Arc is not in the right place, that could throw off a search,” Gibson said. “So that’s why we need to rely on the debris, drift analysis and oceanography, which specifies the latitude, and use the Inmarsat data to give us an indicator narrowing down the longitude to prioritise the search.

“We shouldn’t, however, rely too much on the sanctity of the Inmarsat data as it is quite simply open to interpretation. We don’t need the Inmarsat data to know that the plane crashed in a high-speed crash in the southern Indian Ocean somewhere in between about 28 degrees south and about 36 degrees south.”

Investigator Richard Godfrey says MH370’s location is further north than previously thought and he has urged Ocean Infinity to search the possible crash location defined in his most recent research: within a radius of 30 km centred on 29.128°S, 99.934°E.

Godfrey has conducted analyses using the Global Detection and Tracking of Any Aircraft Anywhere (GDTAAA) software based on WSPR data, which is publicly available on WSPRnet.

Some investigators find Godfrey’s analysis compelling, but others are more sceptical. Several professional pilots have asserted that WSPR data cannot provide information that is useful for aircraft tracking.

Godfrey monitored radio signals sent out by radio amateurs around the world. Hundreds of these signals are sent out every two minutes.

He explains that, when the radio signals cross the path of an aircraft, it is possible to detect changes in the signal level and in the frequency.

Godfrey originally placed the location of MH370 at about 33.2°S, 95.3°E in the middle of the southern Indian Ocean, about 2,000 kilometres west of Perth, Australia, but, on September 8, 2022, he published a new paper in which he presented new calculations that he says indicate that MH370 took a different route to the one he suggested earlier.

He said in an interview with CNA (formerly Channel NewsAsia) that the Indian Ocean was a very inhospitable place.

There was difficult weather and difficult seafaring, Godfrey said, and the underwater search was even more difficult because in the rugged terrain in 3,000 to 4,000 metres of depth there were canyons, underwater cliffs, and underwater volcanoes.

“It is a very challenging environment for Ocean Infinity to search, but they have improved their technology and I’m very hopeful that this time they will be successful,” Godfrey said.

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 in Kuala Lumpur.

UPDATE

Malaysia’s prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, said in a Facebook post on December 25 that the Malaysian government would give full cooperation if the search by Ocean Infinity yielded the long-awaited results.

He had clarified in earlier comments that the search would be conducted on a ‘no find, no fee’ basis.

Anwar said in his Facebook post that, more than a decade after MH370 vanished from radar, many questions and mysteries remained unresolved. Not only the next of kin, but the general public deserved answers, he said.

Anwar emphasised the importance of balancing the need to search for MH370 with ensuring the most prudent use of public funds.

Malaysian transport ministers have long said that there needed to be “new credible evidence” before the government could proceed with another search.

Anwar said on March 4 this year, during a visit to Australia, that, if there was “compelling evidence” that the search needed to be reopened, the government would certainly be happy to reopen it.

He said at a year-end session with the media on December 21 that he did not believe that there was such compelling evidence.

See earlier article for background.

DONATE TO CHANGING TIMES VIA SIMPLE PAYMENTS

1= 5 euro, x 2 = 10 euro, X 3 =15 euro, etc.

€5.00