New deep-sea search for missing MH370 begins in Indian Ocean, reviving decade-old mystery

HANOI: A deep-sea search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 began in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday, reviving efforts to solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries more than a decade after the jet vanished with 239 people on board.

Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said Wednesday that a search vessel, the Armada 86 05, arrived at a designated search area with two autonomous underwater vehicles.

The location of the search area was not disclosed in the statement. It said the vessel had prepared for the search in Fremantle Port in Western Australia.

The government did not specifically mention Ocean Infinity, the company that helmed a previous search and had long been slated to lead the new one.

But the craft that the government specified by number has been widely identified by maritime and aviation websites as belonging to Ocean Infinity.

Earlier in December, the Malaysian government said that the Texas-based marine robotics firm would begin searching targeted areas of the seabed under a renewed “no-find, no-fee” agreement.

Ocean Infinity has confirmed it was resuming the search for MH370 but refused to comment further, citing the “important and sensitive nature” of the operation.

Ocean Infinity previously searched the seabed in 2018, under a similar contract but found no trace of the plane. The company has said it has since upgraded its technology and refined its analysis.

Its CEO Oliver Plunkett said last year the firm was working with multiple experts and had narrowed the search zone to what it believes is the most probable crash site.

Earlier this year, Ocean Infinity briefly restarted seabed search operations in a new 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) area of the southern Indian Ocean after receiving approval from Malaysia, but the effort was suspended in April because of poor weather.

The Malaysia Airlines plane disappeared from radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Satellite data later showed the aircraft veered from its planned route and flew south toward the remote southern Indian Ocean, where investigators believe it crashed. There has never been an explanation for the course change.

A costly and protracted multinational search effort failed to locate the aircraft, though pieces of debris believed to be from the plane later washed up along the East Africa coast and on Indian Ocean islands. No main wreckage or bodies have ever been recovered.