By Tim Binnall
Nearly 11 years after Malaysian Airlines flight 370 mysteriously disappeared, a new search is underway in the hopes of finally locating the lost passenger plane. The curious case captivated the world in March of 2014 when the Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members vanished shortly after departing Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing. The unfathomable nature of a passenger plane simply disappearing in this day and age became all the more confounding in the years that followed after multiple exhaustive searches for the missing aircraft failed to find the lost flight. Now, for the first time since 2018, a new expedition has reportedly been launched in the hopes of solving the MH370 mystery at last.
Six years ago, maritime robotics company Ocean Infinity conducted a sizeable search of a specific area of the Indian Ocean where it was believed that the remains of the airliner might be found. Although that expedition ultimately came up short, the group eventually convinced the Malaysian government that new insights from the flight data had provided a more promising picture of where it likely went down. This led to an agreement wherein Ocean Infinity would once again look for the lost passenger plane with the understanding that they would only recoup their costs if the airliner is found.
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that the new search has begun with the company deploying autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) that are far superior to similar devices used by the group in 2018. During the lengthy expedition, the company hopes to scour four specific spots within a massive swath of the Indian Ocean where they suspect that the plane might have come to rest. While it is hoped that this will be the last search for MH370, one cannot rule out the possibility of yet another earnest effort coming up short, given the maddening nature of the case to date. That said, even if the airliner is found, many questions surrounding the incident will remain, specifically why it went missing in the first place.