A British marine robotics company has launched what could be the final search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, over a decade after the Boeing 777 vanished.
Ocean Infinity’s deep-water support vessel Armada 7806 has reportedly begun scouring the seabed for the wreck as it attempts to solve one of aviation’s biggest mysteries.
Marine tracking websites show that the vessel arrived at a new search zone in the Indian Ocean over the weekend, reported The Telegraph.
The search mission, 1,200 miles off Perth, Australia, is expected to be the last sent looking for the plane that disappeared almost 11 years ago.
On 8 March 2014, the Malaysia Airlines flight with 239 passengers and crew onboard fell off air traffic control’s radar 40 minutes into its six-hour journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Search efforts are understood to have already deployed autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) from the Ocean Infinity ship and started scans of the ocean floor.
The AUVs, able to descend to a depth of 6km, are operated via a satellite link from the company’s control centre in Southampton and are expected to explore four areas identified as potential crash sites by researchers.
AUVs on Ocean Infinity’s Armada 7806, built in 2023, are able to spend four days submerged, twice as long as their 2018 predecessors.
Malaysian transport minister Anthony Loke confirmed on Tuesday (25 February) that Ocean Infinity had resumed the hunt for the missing plane.
The new search is focused on a 15,000sq km arc in the southern Indian Ocean, based on data including satellite signals and disrupted radio transmissions, that Kuala Lumpur found to be “credible”.
In December, the Malaysian government confirmed that the search for the missing passenger jet would resume with Ocean Infinity on a “no find, no fee” agreement. The best time to undertake the search was identified between January and April.
Mr Loke welcomed the search and said they were still “finalising the details for the contract to be signed”.
“Nevertheless, we welcome the proactiveness of Ocean Infinity to search for MH370 as this is great news for all the victims’ next of kin.”
No final agreement has been announced between the government and the company, with Ocean…
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