After over a decade since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously disappeared mid-flight, the search for the vanished airplane restarted on Tuesday.
When Flight 370 went off the radar on its journey from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, in March 2014, 239 passengers and crew members disappeared with the plane. The search effort that ensued after the disappearance came to be the most expensive search-and-rescue mission in aviation history.
Ocean Infinity, a U.S.-based marine robotics company, resumed the search mission on Tuesday for a total of 55 days. The Malaysian Ministry of Transport confirmed the mission in early December.
“The search will be carried out in targeted area assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft, in accordance with the service agreement entered between the Government of Malaysia and Ocean Infinity on 25 March 2025,” the ministry said in a press release.
The search will take place in a 6,000-square-mile section of the Indian Ocean floor, using drones, underwater vehicles, and other deep-sea scanning technologies.
“The latest development underscores the Government of Malaysia’s commitment in providing closure to the families affected by this tragedy,” the ministry added.
This will be Ocean Infinity’s second time conducting a search mission to find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The company first conducted a mission to find the flight in 2018, but found nothing. The CEO of Ocean Infinity believes the company has improved its search and scanning technology since the 2018 mission.
The first search for the flight began after the disappearance and was led by Malaysia, China, and Australia. It did not lead to any significant findings, but a piece of debris from the airplane’s wing was found washed up on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean in 2015.
There have been over 30 suspected pieces of debris that have washed ashore on Indian Ocean islands and the African coast, but only three pieces of debris have been confirmed as part of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
MALAYSIA RENEWS SEARCH FOR MISSING FLIGHT MH370 OVER DECADE AFTER MYSTERY CRASH
The flight bound for Beijing fell off air traffic control radar about 40 minutes after takeoff over the South China Sea. However, it was later picked up by military radar over the Indian Ocean, indicating it likely banked a sharp turn westward away from its original path to the destination.
Over half of the 227 passengers on board were Chinese, with other passengers hailing from countries such as Malaysia, the United States, Russia, and Indonesia.