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US search firm says to end MH370 hunt in ‘coming days’
KUALA LUMPUR, May 29, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A private hunt for Flight MH370 will
end in the coming days, a search firm said Tuesday, about four years after
the plane’s disappearance sparked one of the world’s greatest aviation
mysteries.
The Malaysia Airlines jet vanished in March 2014 with 239 people — mostly
from China — on board, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
No sign of the plane was found in a 120,000-square kilometre (46,000-square
mile) sea search zone and the Australian-led hunt, the largest in aviation
history, was suspended in January last year.
After pressure from families, the former Malaysian government struck a deal
with US exploration firm Ocean Infinity to restart the search in January on
the condition it would only be paid if the Boeing 777 or its black boxes were
found.
The firm stood to make up to $70 million if successful but did not find any
sign of the airliner despite scouring the seabed with some of the world’s
most high-tech search equipment.
The hunt was officially meant to end late April but was extended. However,
the new government of Mahathir Mohamad, which came to power after a shock
election win this month, announced last week the search was set to end.
Texas-based Ocean Infinity said in a statement Tuesday that “its current
search for the wreckage of… Flight MH370 is shortly coming to an end”.
A spokesman added the hunt would end in the coming days, without giving a
precise date.
The new hunt was in an area of about 25,000 square kilometres in the
southern Indian Ocean, north of the previous search zone.
The ship conducting the hunt, Seabed Constructor, was a Norwegian research
vessel carrying 65 crew, including two members of the Malaysian navy as the
government’s representatives.
It scoured the waters for wreckage using eight autonomous drones equipped
with sonars and cameras, and able to operate at depths up to 6,000 metres
(20,000 feet).
Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found, all of them on
western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-metre wing part known as a
flaperon.
The jet’s disappearance stands as one of the most enduring aviation
mysteries of all time and has spawned a host of theories, with some blaming a
hijacking or even a terror plot.
BSS/AFP/IJ/1344 hrs