Search for lost plane MH370 that vanished with 239 people on board to restart with £55million reward if jet is found

MALAYSIAN authorities have announced that search efforts for missing flight MH370 are set to resume – more than 10 years after the plane vanished.

Officials are set to scan a new search area in the southern Indian Ocean – and exploration company Ocean Infinity will receive a whopping £55million if it finds new wreckage of the jet.

Transport minister Anthony Loke confirmed the government would be launching a fresh search.

He said in a statement that the government has a “responsibility and obligation” to those who lost loved ones when the plane vanished in March 2014.

“Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin. We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families,” Loke said.

The Malaysian Airlines flight disappeared from flight radar screens on March 8th 2014 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people onboard.

Underwater robotics company Ocean Infinity previously revealed to The Sun that it had submitted its search proposal for the new hunt.

The same organisation conducted the last search for MH370 which ended in 2018.

They told how three of the firm’s robot vessels were ready and waiting for the green light from officials.

The company said a new search would resume in a 15,000sqkm area off the coast of Western Australia, near the last known location of the doomed jet.

Malaysian officials have not confirmed the exact site for the new search.

But Ocean Infinity’s plan has a “no find, no fee” meaning if the search is successful – the enormous £55million bill will have to be paid by the Malaysian government.

Loke said: “The Cabinet has agreed in principle to accept Ocean Infinity’s proposal to resume the search for MH370’s wreckage in a new search area estimated at 15,000km (9,320 miles) per square based on the no-find-no-fee principle.

“This means the government will not have to pay unless the wreckage is found.”

It’s thought that WSPR technology could play a big part in the search with Professer Simon Maskell acting as an adviser to the Ocean Infinity team.

Simon and his team at Liverpool Univeristy have been investigating the possibility of using WSPR technology to detect and track aircraft.

It’s also been revealed that the company may be looking at hydrophone data, sound picked up by underwater microphones, as part of their plans.

The disappearance of MH370 sparked the biggest search in aviation history and to this day the wreckage of the jet, presumed to have crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean, remains undiscovered. 

Many theories have emerged in the ten years since it vanished, including the possibility of a depressurized cabin sparking a ghost flight into oblivion or a suicidal pilot carrying out a perfect ditching. 

The official MH370 narrative suggests the plane made a bizarre U-turn, flying across Malaysia, turning northwest at Penang Island and across the Andaman Sea.

Data from military radar and satellite data revealed that the plane flew on for hours towards the Southern Indian Ocean where it crashed in an unknown location.