KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 (Reuters) – Malaysia has extended by one year its deal with deep-sea exploration firm Ocean Infinity to conduct an underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the transport ministry said on Monday.
The Boeing 777 aircraft was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014, becoming one of the world’s enduring aviation mysteries. Multiple search operations conducted for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean have proved fruitless.
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Ocean Infinity had carried out searches for the plane up until 2018. Last year, it signed a new deal with Malaysia to resume the hunt in an area covering 15,000 sq km (5,792 sq miles), with the firm to be paid $70 million only if it finds the wreckage.
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The extension of the deal is for the 12 months from July 1 this year to June 30, 2027, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a statement.
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“This decision is a manifestation of the government’s continuous and unwavering commitment to provide a closure for the next of kin of the passengers aboard flight MH370,” he said.
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The extension is aimed at enabling the search of a remaining area of 7,428.54 sq km to be fully completed by Ocean Infinity, Loke said.
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It takes into account Ocean Infinity’s new commercial contract commitments, which will require the search’s primary assets to be temporarily redeployed to another location between November 2026 and April 2027, he added.
Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by John Mair.
