New search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 approved more than a decade after disappearance

close Video

Questions still unanswered 10 years after Malaysia MH370 flight vanished

 Fox News senior foreign affairs correspondent Greg Palkot looks back on the tragedy 10 years later on ‘America Reports.’

Malaysia’s government gave final approval for a Texas-based company to resume the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 more than a decade after the airplane’s disappearance. 

Terms and conditions of a “no-find, no fee” contract have been agreed upon with Ocean Infinity to launch a seabed search operation at a new 5,800-square-mile site, according to Transport Minister Anthony Loke. The company will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered. 

“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the passengers of flight MH370,” Loke said in a statement. 

The 2014 disappearance remains one of the most vexing mysteries in aviation. The Boeing 777 took off from Kuala Lumpur headed to Beijing on March 8, 2014, and disappeared around 90 seconds after leaving Malaysian airspace with all 239 of its passengers seemingly gone without a trace. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed. 

NEW CLUES 10 YEARS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MH370 

A young child watches the Malaysia Airlines planes on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in March 2014.  (Joshua Paul/NurPhoto/NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images)

Ocean Infinity declined comment when reached by Fox News Digital Thursday morning. It told Fox News last year that it hoped “to narrow the search area down to one in which success becomes potentially achievable.” 

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to MH370’s location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing, although CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the company had improved its technology since then. 

NEW THEORY ON THE VANISHED MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 

Ocean Infinity became best known for its work trying to locate wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean in 2014 with 239 passengers on board.  (Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Loke said his ministry will ink a contract with Ocean Infinity soon but didn’t provide details on the terms. The firm reportedly sent a search vessel to the site and indicated in December that January-April is the best period for the search. 

“While the next of kin of the passengers and crew on board attempt to rebuild our lives, the threat to global aviation safety remains a live issue,” Voice370, a group of relatives of passengers from MH370, previously said in a statement. 

Co-Pilot, Flying Officer Marc Smith looks out as he turns his Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion aircraft at low level in bad weather while searching for missing Malaysia Airways Flight MH370 on March 24, 2014, off the southwest coast of Perth, Australia.  (Richard Wainwright/Pool/Getty Images)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP 

“As long as we remain in the dark about what happened to MH370, we will never be able to prevent a similar tragedy. Accordingly, we believe that it is a matter of paramount importance that the search for MH370 is carried out to its completion.” 

Fox News’ Greg Palkot, Peter Aitken and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.