Technology
PUBLISHED
Nearly 12 years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished, the search for answers is back on.
The Malaysian Government has tasked the private tech company Ocean Infinity to restart efforts to find the wreck of the missing aircraft, which has been lost since 2014.
Seabed search operations initially began in March 2025, but were suspended shortly after because of poor weather conditions. They were restarted on December 30, 2025, and are scheduled to run for 55 days, focusing on what officials describe as a “targeted area assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft.”
The renewed mission returns to the remote depths of the southern Indian Ocean, a vast and unforgiving expanse of water that has resisted previous search efforts.
Ocean Infinity, which has partnered with Malaysia before, is using its ship Armada 86-05 to deploy a fleet of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to scan the ocean floor in the same region where earlier investigations were concentrated. The company is reportedly getting paid $70 million for the search on a “no find, no fee” basis.
What Happened To MH370?
The story of MH370 is tragic, fascinating, and bizarre. On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur at 1:01 am, bound north for Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. What should have been a routine flight unexpectedly turned into one of the biggest mysteries of the 21st century.
The last voice communication from the cockpit came at 1:19 am, but just two minutes later, as the plane approached Vietnamese airspace over the South China Sea, its transponder (a device used to communicate with air-traffic control) was mysteriously turned off.
Moments later, Malaysian military and civilian radar noted the northbound aircraft changed course, zigzagging southwest over the Malay Peninsula, then northwest over the Strait of Malacca. By 2:22 am, radar contact was lost entirely over the Andaman Sea.
However, most unusually, a satellite over the Indian Ocean continued to pick up “pings” from MH370 every hour until 8:11 am – over seven hours after takeoff. These signals suggested the plane took a dramatic turn southwards into the depths of the Indian Ocean.
It’s unclear what happened next, although it’s typically assumed the plane ran out of fuel at this point and plummeted into the sea.
All 239 people on board are presumed dead, making it the deadliest case of an aircraft disappearance in history.
The Tragic Mystery Of MH370
Malaysian investigators released a 495-page report about the tragedy in 2018, concluding that the plane was most likely turned around in mid-air manually by a person, rather than being under the control of autopilot. They were unable to say whose hands were on the yoke, but noted that “unlawful interference by a third party” could not be ruled out (in other words, a hijacker).
Despite years of multinational search efforts, the main body of the wreck has never been located. All that has been identified is a small number of debris pieces that washed ashore thousands of kilometers away.
Search operations have involved ships and aircraft from Malaysia, China, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Vietnam, the UK, and the US, as well as a previous private search by Ocean Infinity in 2018, all of which ended without success.
Ocean Infinity has been picked once again to lead the new search after they approached the Malaysian government with a “credible” proposal pinpointing a new area in the southern Indian Ocean. However, the company has not provided any further details on the latest mission.
While hopes are high, there’s no guarantee this mission will succeed.
“It’s a monstrously big circle [to search],” said Simon Maskell, professor of autonomous systems at Liverpool University and a former scientific adviser to Ocean Infinity, speaking to The Guardian.
“The ocean floor is a very complicated environment to navigate around,” added Maskell. “It’s not just flat. You’ve got huge mountains, ridges, and chasms – and you’ve got to look everywhere.”
“One 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.”
Perhaps with new technology, we might be a step closer to unraveling this mystery.
2
