Source : Perth Now news
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 Boeing 777 aircraft was carrying 227 passengers, including six Australians, and 12 crew when it vanished on the way 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.
Ocean Infinity had carried out searches for the plane up until 2018.
In 2025, it signed a new deal with Malaysia to resume the hunt in an area covering 15,000 square kilometres, with the firm to be paid $US70 million ($A102 million) only if it finds the wreckage.
The extension of the deal was for the 12 months from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a statement on Monday.
“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.
The extension was aimed at enabling the search of a remaining area of 7,428.54 sq km to be fully completed by Ocean Infinity, Loke said.
It took into account Ocean Infinity’s new commercial contract commitments, which would require the search’s primary assets to be temporarily redeployed to another location between November 2026 and April 2027, he said.
