On March 8, 2014, flight MH370, a Boeing 777 flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Malaysian government agrees in principle to resume search for remains of missing persons Malaysia Airlines flight MH370The country’s transport minister made the announcement, more than a decade after the plane disappeared in one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries.

Anthony Locke said on Friday that the proposal to search a new area of ​​the southern Indian Ocean came from US exploration company Ocean Infinity, which also conducted the most recent search for the aircraft, which ended in 2018.

“Ocean Infinity’s proposal to conduct a search operation is solid and worthy of consideration,” Locke told reporters. “Our responsibility, obligation and commitment are to the next of kin. We hope this time is positive and that the wreckage can be found and that the The families of the victims bring closure.”

Flight MH370 was a Boeing 777 passenger plane carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members. disappeared On March 8, 2014, on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Locke said that if the wreckage found is true, Ocean Infinity will receive $70 million.

Malaysian investigators did not initially rule out the possibility that the plane was deliberately diverted from its course.

Investigators previously found that its communications systems were shut down less than an hour into the night flight. Military radar later showed the plane had returned. Malaysiabypassing Penang Island and heading towards the northern tip of Sumatra Island.

Some 26 countries participated in search and rescue missions after the disappearance, but nothing was found.

A few weeks later, the Malaysian government announced MH370 flew until it ran out of fuelending its journey deep in the southern Indian Ocean thousands of kilometers away from Beijing.

Debris has washed up on African coasts and Indian Ocean islands, some of which has been confirmed and believed to have come from aircraft.

Relatives have been demanding compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing Co, aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce and Allianz Insurance Group, among others.

Malaysia hired Ocean Infinity in 2018 to conduct searches in the southern Indian Ocean and offered to pay up to $70 million if the plane was found, but both attempts failed.

Previously, Malaysia, Australia and China conducted underwater searches across 120,000 square kilometers (46,332 square miles) of the southern Indian Ocean with 150 nationals on board, based on data from an automated connection between Inmarsat satellites and the aircraft.