Malaysia announced this Wednesday, December 3, that it will resume the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared with 239 people on board in March 2014, shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.
“A [empresa] Ocean Infinity and the Malaysian Government confirm that they will begin [em 30 de dezembro] search operations for a total of 55 days, intermittently”, announced the Malaysian Ministry of Transport, through a statement dated today.
Ocean Infinity is a robotics and deep-sea exploration company based in the United States and the United Kingdom, which has been collaborating for years in the search for the plane, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, around 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to the Chinese capital.
The aircraft disappeared from radars after leaving Malaysian airspace and entering Vietnam, when, in principle, it deviated from the route to the south of the Indian Ocean, without the causes yet being known.
Aboard the Boeing 777 were 153 Chinese, 50 Malaysians (12 were part of the crew), seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French, three North Americans, two New Zealanders, two Ukrainians, two Canadians, two Iranians, one Russian, one Dutchman and one Taiwanese.
Initially, Malaysia, China and Australia carried out a joint search of around 120,000 square kilometers in the Indian Ocean, but ended operations in January 2017, without finding the plane’s wreckage.
Ocean Infinity also tried to locate the device in an area of around 100,000 square kilometers between January and June 2018, without success.
Last April, the Malaysian Government stated that the search operation for the aircraft had been interrupted because it was “not the ideal time” for that purpose, but said that it would be resumed at the end of this year.
Today’s statement confirms that the The search will be carried out in a “specific area with the greatest probability of locating the aircraft”, and follows an agreement between Ocean Infinity and the Malaysian Government, without giving further details.
Last February, the company stated that the search is based on “reliable” information and will focus on an area that “was ignored” during previous missions.