'MH370 is not history': 10 years on, Malaysia seeks to revive Ocean Infinity's jet search
Malaysia is ready to offer a "no-find, no-fee" deal to deep-sea explorers Ocean Infinity to revive the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said on Sunday of a jet which vanished with 239 people on board - the majority Chinese citizens - almost a decade ago.
He made the comment at a Kuala Lumpur memorial event where relatives of those missing made an impassioned appeal to officials to restart the lapsed search for their loved ones, which remains one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history.
In the predawn hours of March 8, 2014, flight MH370, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, dropped off the radar just over an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport en route to Beijing.
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Most of the passengers were Chinese nationals, but also included dozens of Malaysians. Other victims came from Australia, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine, the Netherlands and the United States.
The lack of closure has brought endless heartache to families of the 239 people who disappeared with the airliner - and has spurred a cottage industry in spin-off books, blogs and documentaries, some well-researched, many spurious.
Minister Loke said Malaysia's government was "steadfast in our resolve to locate MH370" and bring closure to the relatives, saying "money is no issue" in the offer to find the jet to Ocean Infinity, a US-based deep-sea survey firm.
The firm carried out a fruitless three-month search across 112,000 sq km of the Indian Ocean in 2018.
"The Ministry of Transport are ready to invite Ocean Infinity to Malaysia to discuss the 'no-find, no-fee' proposal," Loke said in a speech. "We are waiting for Ocean Infinity to provide suitable dates, and I am ready to meet them anytime that they are ready to come to Malaysia."
Until today, little is known of what transpired on board the Boeing 777 jetliner. Air crash investigators concluded that the plane's transponder was turned off manually before it was steered off course.
Ocean Infinity and the families of those on the missing plane have made repeated appeals to the Malaysian government to approve another search attempt.
"And I stand before you, and make this promise, that I will do everything possible to gain cabinet's approval to sign a new contract with Ocean Infinity for the search to resume as soon as possible," Loke added.
A team at UK-based satellite firm Inmarsat traced a probable route - based on seven distinct pings each spread an hour apart and believed to have come from the plane - that led to a remote region of the largely uncharted Indian Ocean some 2,000km west of Perth, Australia.
An international search led by Australia, supported by China and Malaysia, was called off in 2017 after workers scoured an area of more than 120,000 sq km around a potential crash site, at a cost of A$200 million (US$130.7 million).
Relatives of those missing implored authorities to start a new search.
"Even if it takes 10, 20 years or more, we will not forget our loved ones, nor will we cease our search for the truth," said Chinese national Bai Shuan Fu, 56, whose wife Han Ai Chin was travelling on the stricken jet. "Over these 10 years, we have endured the constant torment of yearning for our loved ones. We don't want mere speculation, we want the truth."
In the immediate aftermath of MH370's disappearance, Malaysian aircraft investigators had in a preliminary report proposed to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to consider making it mandatory for commercial airlines to implement real-time tracking to avoid a repeat of the incident.
Most commercial planes have since adopted enhanced location-tracking, which sends out automatic pings every 15 minutes, but the ICAO has had to twice postpone implementation of a one-minute automatic distress tracking (ADT) system to January 2025.
The missing plane's transponder was its main means to transmit vital location data to air traffic controllers tracking the flight.
"MH370 is not history, it is the future of aviation safety," said Malaysian Grace Nathan, the organiser of Sunday's memorial and whose mother Anne Daisy was a passenger.
The event closed with relatives lighting 239 candles - one for each of the people lost - as they joined an emotional rendition of Coldplay's Fix You.
For Malaysian Nicolette Gomes, 39, the memorial was a chance to reflect with other mourning relatives on the lives of lost loved ones, in her case, her father Patrick Francis Gomes, head cabin attendant on the ill-fated flight.
"I miss flying with him. I miss his presence," she told This Week in Asia. "We just waited and waited and waited and nothing. Until today, we are still waiting."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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