At least 12 years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board, a fresh deep-sea search in the southern Indian Ocean has yet to locate the missing aircraft, Malaysian authorities said on Sunday, as families of the victims urged that the operation continue.
In a statement, the Air Accident Investigation Bureau disclosed that a seabed search carried out by marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity between March 2025 and January 2026 covered thousands of square kilometres of the ocean floor but produced no confirmed evidence of the aircraft’s wreckage.
Malaysia had approved the Texas-based company’s proposal last year to resume the hunt for Flight 370 under a “no-find, no-fee” agreement at a new search zone covering about 15,000 square kilometres (5,800 square miles) in the southern Indian Ocean, where the aircraft is believed to have crashed. Under the deal, Ocean Infinity will receive $70 million only if the wreckage is discovered.
According to the bureau, the search mission lasted 28 days and was conducted in two phases — March 25 to March 28 last year and December 31, 2025, to January 23 this year. During that period, about 7,571 square kilometres (2,923 square miles) of seabed were scanned. Operations were occasionally disrupted by adverse weather conditions.
“The search activities undertaken have not yielded any findings that confirm the location of the aircraft wreckage,” the bureau said in the statement, without indicating when the operation might resume.
The Boeing 777 aircraft vanished from radar shortly after departing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board — most of them Chinese nationals — on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Satellite data later indicated the plane deviated from its original route and flew south toward the remote southern Indian Ocean, where investigators believe it crashed.
A costly multinational search operation conducted in the years after the disappearance failed to locate the aircraft, though debris believed to be from the plane later washed ashore along the east African coastline and on islands in the Indian Ocean. A separate private search conducted by Ocean Infinity in 2018 also ended without success.
Meanwhile, Voice 370, a group representing relatives of some passengers on the flight, has called on the Malaysian government to extend Ocean Infinity’s search contract and explore similar agreements with other deep-sea exploration companies.
Although Ocean Infinity’s contract runs until June, the group noted that the company’s search vessel has been reassigned to other assignments and is unlikely to return soon to complete the remaining search areas because of the approaching winter season and worsening sea conditions.
“The government pays nothing unless the aircraft is found. Any request by Ocean Infinity to extend the search contract should therefore be granted without hesitation,” the group said in a statement. “If the present search is unsuccessful, we would also urge Malaysia to kindly consider extending similar no find, no fee opportunities to other capable deep sea exploration companies.”
The organisation also pledged to continue pushing for answers regarding the aircraft’s fate, declaring that it would “continue the fight for answers. We will never give up!”
