Malaysia relaunches search for flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean

More than a decade after the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared from radar with 239 people on boardThe case is back in the news. The Malaysian government has confirmed that It will relaunch the search in the deep waters of the Indian Ocean., in a new attempt to clarify one of the greatest enigmas of modern aviation.

Malaysian authorities insist their objective is to provide answers and closure to families Scattered across Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas, these regions have been demanding convincing explanations for years. Despite previous operations and numerous technical reports, The causes of the disappearance of MH370 remain undetermined.This has fueled official hypotheses and all sorts of alternative theories.

A new deep-sea operation with Ocean Infinity

The Malaysian Ministry of Transport has announced that The search will resume on December 30. and will last for approximately 55 daysThe operation will be carried out by [company name missing], with intermittent work contingent on weather conditions and technical capabilities. Ocean Infinity, a robotics and seabed exploration company with headquarters in the United States and the United Kingdom, which has already participated in previous missions linked to the MH370 case.

According to the official statement, the company's ships and underwater drones will be concentrated in an area of ​​about 15.000 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean, defined as the area with higher probability of finding aircraft wreckage Based on new analyses of satellite data, debris drift models, and hydrodynamic studies, independent experts and technical teams have worked alongside the company to define this sector, which is considered a range that may have been partially excluded from previous searches.

The contract is again based on the scheme of “No find, no pay”Ocean Infinity will only charge approximately 70 million agreed upon if it manages to locate the aircraft or substantial fragments of the fuselage. This model, already used in 2018, aims to balance the public cost of a high-risk operation with the incentive of concrete results. The Malaysian government emphasizes that the use of improved underwater tracking technology and more sophisticated data analysis processes constitute the main difference compared to previous attempts.

A mystery that began 40 minutes after takeoff

The commercial flight Malaysia Airlines MH370, operated by a Boeing 777-200ER, took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport the night of March 8th 2014 bound for Beijing. It was scheduled to land in the Chinese capital around 06:30 a.m. local time. However, just 40 minutes after takeoffAs it was preparing to enter Vietnamese airspace, the aircraft stopped transmitting regular data to civilian controllers.

The last recorded radio communication was the now famous phrase “Good evening, Malaysian Three Seven Zero”uttered from the cockpit while the aircraft was still under Malaysian control. Minutes later, the transponder—the device that sends the position to civilian radars— It turned off unexpectedlyFrom that moment on, tracking relied on military radars and indirect data obtained from satellites.

Military radar records showed that the aircraft It veered sharply west.He returned over the Malaysian peninsula and crossed into the Strait of MalaccaSubsequent studies, based on data from the British company InmarsatThey suggest that the device It continued flying for about 7 hours and 37 minutesheading south until they ran out of fuel and presumably crash in a remote area of ​​the southern Indian Ocean.

239 people on board and an international impact

There were passengers on MH370 239 people: 227 passengers and 12 crew membersMost of the occupants were Chinese citizensalthough there was also a significant number of Malaysians, Indonesians and Australians, plus travelers from the United States, France, Russia, India, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and other countriesAmong them were entire families, young children, tech workers, and artistsThis caused the tragedy to have media and emotional repercussions on several continents, including Europe.

The presence on board of two Iranian citizens with stolen passports It initially raised suspicions of a possible kidnapping or terrorist act. However, international investigations concluded that There was no solid evidence linking these passengers to a conspiracy. and opted to consider them asylum seekers in transit. Similarly, Chinese authorities reviewed the profiles of their citizens on the flight and found no evidence pointing to terrorist activities.

The largest underwater search in aviation history

Following the disappearance, Malaysia, Australia, and China coordinated the largest air and underwater search operation ever conductedThe search area shifted from the South China Seawhere it was initially thought the plane might have crashed, towards the andaman sea and finally to southern Indian Ocean, off the western coast of Australia.

Between 2014 and 2017, approximately 120.000 square kilometers of seabed with aircraft, ships equipped with sonar and autonomous underwater vehicles capable of operating at depths of nearly 6.000 meters. The total cost of the operation exceeded 150 millionmostly funded by Malaysia, with significant contributions from Australia and China. Despite the technical and logistical deployment, The fuselage was not located. Nor were the black boxes recovered.

In parallel, several fragments attributed to MH370 were discovered: in Reunion Island, in the western Indian Ocean, appeared in July 2015 a flaperon of a Boeing 777 which was officially confirmed as part of the missing aircraft. Later, they were identified Other remains have been found on beaches in Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Rodrigues Island (Mauritius) and Kangaroo Island in AustraliaThese findings confirmed the general scenario of an impact in the Indian Ocean, but did not allow for an accurate reconstruction of the final flight sequence.

In 2018, Malaysia signed its first agreement with Ocean Infinity for further searching, also under the model of “payment conditional upon discovery”The company used fleets of underwater drones to analyze more than 112.000 square kilometers of the seabed in an area located north of the original site. That campaign also failed to locate the main remains and was concluded. without conclusive results.

Regulatory impact and lessons for aviation

Despite the lack of a single accepted cause, the MH370 case has spurred significant regulatory changes in commercial aviationInternational organizations and national authorities have promoted the extension of the recording time of the black boxes, both in terms of flight data and cockpit conversations, to prevent future accidents from leaving unrecorded periods.

The regulations on the tracking of aircraft in flight over oceans and remote areasso that aircraft transmit their position more frequently and, in the event of an incident, the potential search area is reduced. Furthermore, the technical requirements of the underwater locator beaconsextending the time during which they can emit audible signals for tracking equipment.

For Malaysia Airlines itself, MH370 - in addition to the downing of the flight MH17 months later - it meant a economic and reputational blow of great magnitude. The drop in demand for tickets forced a profound restructuring and ultimately to the renationalization of the company at the end of 2014. The case remains present in debates on safety and transparency in the management of air crises, both in Asia and in Europe.

Families caught between waiting and public pressure

Throughout these years, the families of the victims have maintained constant pressure on the Malaysian government and the authorities involvedAssociations of relatives have organized demonstrations in front of ministries and embassies, particularly in Pekinwhere groups of Chinese relatives have gathered on significant dates to remember their loved ones and demand that the case not be closed.

In several of these protests, participants have carried banners demanding “answers” ​​and “truth”and denouncing the wear and tear of years of waiting and emotional uncertaintyOn the 11th anniversary, a group of relatives of Chinese passengers gathered in the Chinese capital near the Malaysian embassy, ​​chanting slogans such as “Give us back our loved ones!” and questioning the slowness of official progress.

From Kuala Lumpur, the Ministry of Transport has attempted to respond to these demands by emphasizing that the new operation with Ocean Infinity It aims precisely to offer the most solid closure possible to familiesThe Executive stresses that it will only consider the matter closed when it has information that can be considered definitive, and insists that Reopening the search is a sign of their political will.

The reactivation of the search for MH370 puts the spotlight back on a case that has marked a turning point in aviation safety and international crisis management: if the new underwater campaign manages to locate the fuselage or the black boxes, the aviation world will finally have Key clues to reconstruct the last hours of the flightIf, on the other hand, the mission concludes without findings, the mystery will remain open and The unknowns about what happened on that nighttime journey between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing will continue to haunt the families and investigators around the world..