Malaysian authorities plan to resume their search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which mysteriously disappeared over a decade ago.
The country’s transportation ministry said the search for wreckage will restart on December 30, headed by U.S.-based exploration and marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity. The company specializes in deep sea research and has helped look for suspected wrecks, including Flight 370, in the past.
The search will run intermittently for a total of 55 days.
Ocean Infinity is working on a “no find, no fee” contract, CNBC reported, and will receive $70 million from the Malaysian government only if it locates the aircraft’s wreckage.
“The latest development underscores [Malaysia’s] commitment to providing closure to the families affected by this tragedy,” the transportation ministry said, according to the BBC.
The Boeing 777-200ER operating as Flight 370 disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It had 12 crewmembers and 227 passengers on board. All are presumed dead, making the incident the single deadliest aircraft disappearance in history.
Dozens of ships and aircraft from over 25 countries—including Malaysia, the U.S., China, the U.K., and Australia—have taken part in search missions over the years, mainly centering on the waters off Southeast Asia and the southern Indian Ocean. The first pieces of debris confirmed to be from Flight 370 were found on Réunion in 2015, and more was located off Mozambique a year later.
Still, the main body of the aircraft and its wings have never been found.
Numerous theories for Flight 370’s disappearance have been put forward over the years, including murder-suicide by one of the pilots, fire from lithium-ion batteries stored on board, and a hypoxia event that incapacitated the crew.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in 2014 that Flight 370’s tracking and communication systems were deliberately turned off and that the aircraft continued to fly off course for about six hours after vanishing from radar.
