More than ten years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board, a new search effort has officially started in one of the most isolated areas of the ocean, raising hopes of finally uncovering the mystery of aviation.
The Singapore-flagged ship Armada 86 05 set sail from Kwinana anchorage in Australia on December 23. It is traveling westward into the Indian Ocean at about 10.5 knots, according to ship tracking data from MarineTraffic. This 86-meter vessel has advanced sonar systems that can work at depths of several thousand meters, and the mission is focusing on areas that were not fully searched before.
Ocean Infinity, the U.S. exploration company leading the search, released a statement saying, “With the support of the Malaysian Government, we are resuming the search for the missing aircraft MH370. Due to the important and sensitive nature of this search, formal communications will come through the Malaysian Government.”
The search targets a large section of the Southern Indian Ocean, guided by updated satellite and drift analysis.
In February, Malaysia’s Transport Minister confirmed that while the government had given principle approval for the search to restart, the official contract with Ocean Infinity had yet to be signed. Ocean Infinity’s plan includes an 18-month effort that expands the previous search area by 15,000 square kilometers, with the best operational window being from January to April.
The Boeing 777 went missing on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew members. Its last transmission occurred about 40 minutes after takeoff when it entered Vietnamese airspace over the Gulf of Thailand, after which its transponder was turned off.
Military radar tracked the plane as it strayed from its flight path, turning back over northern Malaysia and into the Andaman Sea before heading south, at which point all contact was lost. Since then, debris confirmed or thought to be from the aircraft has washed up along the African coast and on islands in the Indian Ocean.
This is Ocean Infinity's third attempt to find the wreckage. The company conducted two previous searches in 2018 in the southern Indian Ocean, neither of which was successful. These efforts followed a comprehensive underwater search by Australia, China, and Malaysia that covered 120,000 square kilometers of the southern Indian Ocean, based on data from automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the aircraft.
A 495-page report on the disappearance, released in 2018, suggested that the Boeing 777’s controls were likely manipulated to divert the plane, but investigators could not determine who was responsible. The report avoided giving a conclusive answer, stating that would rely on finding the wreckage. Investigators found nothing suspicious regarding the background, finances, training, or mental health of either the captain or co-pilot.