The relatives want the American company Ocean Infinity, which spent months exploring a piece of the seabed in 2018, to be given another chance. Nothing was found in 2018, but in the meantime Ocean Infinity would have received a lot of new information, which “has greatly increased their chance of success,” Reuters news agency quotes a spokesman for the next of kin as saying.
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 nine years ago is one of the greatest mysteries in recent aviation history and fuel for the most grotesque theories: the plane was abducted by alien, swallowed by a black hole, brought down by America, landed in India, or disappeared in an ‘Asian Bermuda Triangle’. In more realistic scenarios, oxygen escaped from the aircraft, all occupants became unconscious, and the aircraft flew south on autopilot across the Indian Ocean until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea.
Flight MH370 departed shortly after midnight on March 8, 2014 on a routine flight from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Forty minutes after take-off, the pilot reported to Malaysian air traffic control: ‘Good Night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero‘. That was the last that would ever be heard of MH370.
Traffic radar
The aircraft disappeared from Malaysian traffic radar over Vietnamese waters and would never resurface. Immediately after the disappearance, a search was launched in Vietnamese waters, in which 26 countries participated with ships and planes. Only later did it appear that military radar systems had also picked up the MH370, and that the aircraft had made a U-turn. It also disappeared from military radar over the Strait of Malacca. From satellite signals it was concluded that the aircraft had flown southwest over the Indian Ocean.
Why the aircraft made the U-turn has never been clarified. The official Malaysian theory is that due to a malfunction or a fire, the instruments were disabled and the oxygen supply failed, rendering crew and passengers unconscious. According to researchers, the bend must still have been made by hand. The pilot may have turned around to make an emergency landing. That never happened again. MH370 flew on until it ran out of fuel, then crashed into the sea.
Debris
It is now certain that the MH370 has crashed. In July 2015, three pieces of a Boeing 777 wing were found in Africa on the beaches of Réunion, Madagascar and Tanzania. Research showed that those debris did indeed come from the missing MH370. New calculations then led to the conclusion that the plane must have crashed west of Australia.
Malaysia, China and Australia started a large-scale search, aided in part by a ship from the Dutch company Fugro. In July 2016, Fugro concluded that the search had been in the wrong place for two years. In January 2017, the search, which had already cost $ 140 million, was called off. A subsequent attempt, by the American company Ocean Infinity, failed in 2018. Malaysia had promised $70 million if the company was successful. Now the cost was for Ocean Infinity itself. In total, more than 310,000 square kilometers of seabed were searched in the two searches, more than seven times the area of the Netherlands.
The relatives hope that Malaysia and the company will make another no-cure-no-pay agreement. If the search succeeds this time, they will finally be able to say goodbye to their loved ones after nine years.
