Post by : Rameen Ariff

More than a decade after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished without a trace, the mystery of the missing Boeing 777 continues to captivate the world. Despite years of multinational search operations, investigators still do not know exactly what happened to the plane or its 239 passengers and crew. On Wednesday, the Malaysian government announced that American marine robotics company Ocean Infinity will resume a seabed search for MH370 starting December 30, renewing hopes that the aircraft might finally be found.

Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, just 39 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. The pilot’s last communication, “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero,” came before the aircraft entered Vietnamese airspace. Shortly afterward, the plane’s transponder stopped transmitting, and military radar data showed it had turned back over the Andaman Sea. Satellite information suggests the plane continued flying for several hours, possibly until fuel exhaustion, before crashing into a remote section of the southern Indian Ocean.

The disappearance of MH370 sparked extensive searches across the South China Sea, the Andaman Sea, and the southern Indian Ocean. Despite the largest underwater search in history—covering roughly 120,000 square kilometres of seabed off western Australia—almost no wreckage or bodies were recovered. Only a few small fragments, including a flaperon found on Reunion Island in 2015, confirmed the plane’s fate. Many black box signals detected during the search were later found to be from unrelated sources.

Among the 239 aboard were 227 passengers, including five young children, and 12 crew members. Most were Chinese nationals, with others from countries such as the United States, Indonesia, France, and Russia. Notable passengers included two young Iranians traveling on stolen passports, a group of Chinese calligraphy artists, 20 employees of U.S. tech company Freescale Semiconductor, a stunt double for actor Jet Li, and families with multiple children.

MH370 has sparked numerous theories, ranging from hijacking and deliberate interference to cabin depressurisation or power failure. Malaysian authorities have cleared the passengers and crew of wrongdoing but have acknowledged that someone may have deliberately diverted the aircraft and severed communications.

In 2018, Ocean Infinity conducted a “no-find, no-fee” search using robotic submarines and advanced seabed mapping technology but was unable to locate the wreckage. Now, the company plans to resume targeted searches over a 15,000-square-kilometre area of the southern Indian Ocean where the likelihood of discovery is highest. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if the aircraft is found.

The southern Indian Ocean presents unique challenges for search teams, with average depths reaching four kilometres and unpredictable weather complicating operations. Despite these obstacles, the renewed search represents one of the last opportunities to uncover MH370 and provide closure for the families of those lost in one of aviation’s most enduring mysteries.

With the resumption of the search, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continues to dominate headlines, keeping alive the hope that the world may finally learn the fate of the missing plane and the 239 souls aboard.

#Global News #Travel