News

MH370 Search Resumes 11 Years After Disappearance

By Spyros Georgilidakis | February 26, 2025

Maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity has resumed the search for MH370, almost 11 years after the Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared.

The 8th of March 2014 saw one of the greatest mysteries in the history of modern commercial aviation. On that day, a Boeing 777 with 239 people on board vanished over the skies of Malaysia as it took off from Kuala Lumpur and made its way north, towards Vietnam and its destination in Beijing, China.

MH370 Search Resumes 11 Years After Disappearance
9M-MRO, the lost aircraft. Photo: Mattchew02

Many thought that the loss of a modern widebody like that, in the age of GPS and information technology, was impossible. But unlike early assumptions, the search for MH370 bore no fruit for over four years.

The initial surface and underwater search ended in 2017. The following year, Ocean Infinity continued an underwater search, which also ended without any positive results. To date, the only parts of the aircraft that we have are about 20 pieces of debris that washed ashore in Africa, Madagascar and other nearby areas on the west side of the Indian Ocean.

Multiple naval aircraft and other assets searched for the missing Malaysia Airlines 777 with no results. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Keith DeVinney/Released

New Studies Point to New MH370 Search Area(s)

More recently, a number of researchers have proposed new areas where the flight may have ended up. At least two such studies have emerged, based either on further analysis of signals from the aircraft or on the effects of the aircraft’s flight on other radio waves.

You can check out the Mentour Pilot video near the bottom of this article for more information on those studies. More importantly, there have been calls for Ocean Infinity to resume its search in the South Indian Ocean for MH370, focusing on the areas that these studies have highlighted.

MH370 Search Resumes 11 Years After Disappearance
Photo: Paul Rowbotham, CC BY-SA 2.0

However, recent news on the matter was not encouraging. Initially, the plan was for Ocean Infinity to conduct its MH370 search on a “no find, no fee” basis. The company was negotiating this contract with the government of Malaysia.

Ocean Infinity will get $70 million if it finds the missing aircraft. Last December, the news was that the two sides had agreed on preliminary terms for this search… but no further news followed. But now, an Ocean Infinity vessel called Armada 7806 has reportedly reached the new MH370 search area and has launched its underwater search vehicles.

Malaysia’s government has welcomed this news, even though it still hasn’t finalized its contract terms with the company. Ocean Infinity’s contract is for an 18-month search.

Malaysia’s government agrees that there is a case for a new search, based on available new information. The hope is that this will finally bring much-needed closure to the thousands of relatives of the missing 239 passengers and crew of the flight.

Source

5 comments

  • Peter Metaxas

    Dear Mentour Pilot. This is fascinating! What reason would someone have to fly the route that they did? Can a person parachute from a 777? Can an object be dropped out of a 777 attached to a parachute or not? Can the controls of a 777 be set to fly in figure 8’s and then head off in a specific direction. Or if the figure 8’s were flown manually then the person controlling the aircraft parachuted out just after they set the 777 to fly off in a specific direction? Excellent work on your behalf. The entire story is strange, very strange indeed! Regards Peter

  • Iskender Kutlucinar

    Why can’t we have platforms to track airplanes in Indian Ocean and lover parts of the Oceans? Oil companies build these platforms and their legs, chains go down thousands of feet and drill miles of Earth. Can’t we take a lesson from Oil companies? If we had those tracking platforms MH370 could be found within hours or a day. Also you can power these platforms by Ocean currents for Electric supplies plus Solar panels!

  • The airplane was hijacked, and was supposed to meet a boat, and that’s why it was doing the figure 8, looking for its contact.

    What was in the cargo or the passenger luggage?

    • Peter Metaxas

      @Computer Freq
      Your assumption is possible. But how do you meet a boat and hand off some type of cargo or luggage. Maybe an automatically inflatable device is attached to what ever is going to be handed off? Would it survive impact? The entire story is strange, very strange indeed!

  • Patrick Butler

    With the search area being so large, the challenges are also very large. I wish them luck with their search. I have little confidence that the black boxes are still viable, but the wreckage will certainly reveal some valuable information.

Leave your comment