{"id":340705,"date":"2025-12-29T09:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T09:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/340705\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T09:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T09:09:07","slug":"the-mystery-of-flight-mh370-will-a-new-search-find-the-missing-airliner-after-more-than-a-decade-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/340705\/","title":{"rendered":"The mystery of flight MH370: will a new search find the missing airliner after more than a decade? | Malaysia Airlines flight MH370"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a decade after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370<\/a> went missing after veering thousands of miles off course, its location remains unknown.<\/p>\n

The Malaysian government has promised to pay a private company, Ocean Infinity, $70m (\u00a356m) to search for the plane on a \u201cno find, no fee\u201d basis.<\/p>\n

The company intends to target a 15,000 sq km (5,800 sq mile) area in the Indian Ocean where it is thought there is the highest likelihood of finding the missing aircraft.<\/p>\n

What do we know so far?<\/p>\n

Flight MH370 was carrying 12 Malaysian crew and 227 passengers when it took off from Kuala Lumpur on a routine flight to Beijing, shortly before 1am on 8 March 2014.<\/p>\n

At 2.22am, after turning west, away from its planned route, the Boeing 777 vanished from radar coverage while over the Andaman Sea.<\/p>\n

Satellites continued to receive hourly signals from the plane \u2013 indicating it was still flying \u2013 until just after 8am, when it is believed to have run out of fuel.<\/p>\n

These hourly signals have been used to triangulate the distance between a satellite and the plane, but this can only place it within a search zone of 120,000 sq km (46,000 sq miles) of the southern Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a monstrously big circle,\u201d says Simon Maskell, professor of autonomous systems at Liverpool University and a former scientific adviser to Ocean Infinity.<\/p>\n

Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, then head of Malaysia\u2019s civil aviation authority, gives an update on flight MH370 two days after the airliner went missing. Photograph: How Foo Yeen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Numerous parts and debris have been found<\/a> around the shores of the Indian Ocean and identified as belonging to MH370, including pieces of the wing, tail, cabin and engine. No human remains have ever been found but everyone onboard is presumed dead.<\/p>\n

\"MH370:MH370: key moments in the search for missing Malaysian flight \u2013\u00a0videoWhat is Ocean Infinity?<\/p>\n

A marine robotics and seabed survey company, based in the UK and the US, \u201cwith a track record of finding things that are difficult to find on the ocean floor\u201d, says Maskell.<\/p>\n

The company is best known for providing the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust with submersible experts and underwater robots that helped to locate Sir Ernest Shackleton\u2019s lost ship Endurance<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Ocean Infinity unsuccessfully searched more than 80,000 sq km of ocean<\/a> for MH370. Now, it is determined to try again.<\/p>\n

What equipment will Ocean Infinity use?<\/p>\n

The company has a fleet of Hugin 6000 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), which can create a 3D map of the ocean floor at depths of up to 6,000 metres using sonar, laser, optic and echo sound technology, with each machine estimated to be worth at least $8m.<\/p>\n

Despite operating in the dark, the fleet can capture sonar images of their surroundings by bouncing acoustic pulses off whatever is nearby and using lasers to scan unidentified objects (known as \u201cpoints of interest\u201d) and create detailed 3D images.<\/p>\n

The underwater robot that Ocean Infinity is using for the search has a magnetometer that can detect metal even if it is buried under metres of sediment on the seabed. Illustration: Kongsberg<\/p>\n

Each free-swimming AUV can be operated remotely but is mainly used to carry out assignments independently of an operator, and then return to the surface. It can stay underwater for 100 hours before its battery runs out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can say: make me a map of that area and come back when you\u2019re done,\u201d says Maskell.<\/p>\n

What will happen if a piece of the plane is found?<\/p>\n

Each AUV is able to send limited samples of the data it collects \u2013 such as detecting a \u201cpoint of interest\u201d \u2013 to a surface ship and receive mission updates from operators who are supervising its progress using an acoustic communications system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt [the AUV] uses a sub-bottom profiler to see how much sediment there is and how far you have to go down to get to solid rock seabed,\u201d says Richard Godfrey, an independent aviation investigator. \u201cIt also has a magnetometer so it can detect metal, even if it\u2019s buried under several metres of sediment.\u201d<\/p>\n

If necessary, the surface ship can also send down remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) to train floodlights on an object so it can be filmed and photographed.<\/p>\n

These have robotic arms that can also be operated remotely so the machine can grab, turn and inspect objects. It can also bring smaller objects back to the surface.<\/p>\n

How big is the search area?<\/p>\n

Ocean Infinity began searching the 15,000 sq km area priority area in February, but called off the expedition in April after 22 days due to poor weather conditions. It will resume on 30 December for 55 days.<\/p>\n

Godfrey estimates the company has already searched nearly 10,000 sq km, and is planning to search another 25,000 sq km, after spending \u201ctens of millions of dollars\u201d on ships and equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re in this for the monetary reward of $70m, because this search is very, very expensive. I think they\u2019re in this for the achievement and their ability to market themselves as the greatest underwater-search firm in the world because they found MH370,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

What are the biggest challenges?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ocean floor is a very complicated environment to navigate around,\u201d says Maskell. \u201cIt\u2019s not just flat. You\u2019ve got huge mountains, ridges and chasms \u2013 and you\u2019ve got to look everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Indian Ocean, there are canyons more than 300 metres (1,000ft) deep, cliff faces suddenly rising thousands of metres feet off the sea floor and active volcanoes to watch out for, says Godfrey.<\/p>\n

Although the area Ocean Infinity is searching has been surveyed previously, it is thought that the data might be incomplete. \u201cThis is not a very easy place to conduct a search,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest challenges Ocean Infinity faces is the risk of being very close to the MH370 wreckage and missing it because of difficult terrain or gaps in the survey data.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company is also searching in \u201cvery inhospitable waters\u201d, Maskell says. \u201cIt\u2019s not where you would want to go kayaking. The sea is rough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around the clock, the crew will need to analyse data, recharge the AUVs that have returned to the surface, supervise the AUVs and ROVs that are still searching, make sure all their equipment is working \u2013 and fix anything that is not \u2013 \u201call while trying not to get seasick from the ludicrously large waves they are encountering\u201d, says Maskell.<\/p>\n

But by far the biggest challenge of this mission is one that Ocean Infinity is betting it has already overcome: deciding where to search.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have the greatest technology in the world, but if you look in the wrong place, it\u2019s not going to help you,\u201d says Maskell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than a decade after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing after veering thousands of miles off course,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-340705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}