Sawt Falasteen - Search for doomed MH370 resumes 11 years after disappearance

Maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity has resumed the hunt for the missing plane, Malaysian transport minister Anthony Loke said Tuesday.

Loke told reporters contract details between Malaysia and the firm were still being finalised but welcomed "the proactiveness of Ocean Infinity to deploy their ships" to begin the search for the plane which went missing in March 2014.

Loke added that details on how long the search would last had not been negotiated yet.

He also did not provide details on when exactly the British firm kicked off its hunt.

The Malaysian government in December had said it had agreed to launch a new search for MH370, which disappeared more than a decade ago.

The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has never been found.

"We're very relieved and pleased that the search is resuming once again after such a long hiatus," Malaysian Grace Nathan, 36, who lost her mother on the doomed jet, told AFP.

- Previous search -

In December, Loke had said the new search would be on the same "no find, no fee" principle as Ocean Infinity's previous search, with the government only paying out if it finds the aircraft.

The contract was for 18 months and Malaysia would pay $70 million to the company if the plane was found, Loke previously had said.

Ocean Infinity, based in Britain and the United States, carried out an unsuccessful hunt in 2018.

The company's first efforts followed a massive Australia-led search for the aircraft that lasted three years before it was suspended in January 2017.

The Australia-led search covered 120,000 square kilometres (46,300 square miles) in the Indian Ocean but found hardly any trace of the plane, with only some pieces of debris picked up.

In December, Loke said a new 15,000 square kilometre (5,800 square mile) area of the southern Indian Ocean would be scoured by Ocean Infinity.

"They combined all the data and they felt confident that the current search area is more credible," said Loke Tuesday.

"They (Ocean Infinity) have convinced us that they are ready."

The plane's disappearance has long been the subject of theories -- ranging from the credible to outlandish -- including that veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had gone rogue.

A final report into the tragedy released in 2018 pointed to failings by air traffic control and said the course of the plane was changed manually.

J.AbuShaban--SF-PST