MH370 timeline: Malaysia agrees to new search for missing flight

The Malaysian government has announced that the search for missing flight MH370 will resume, more than 10 years after the aircraft went missing.

The marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity, which took part in previous searches, has agreed to comb a new area of the southern Indian Ocean. "We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families," said Malaysia's transport minister Anthony Loke.

It is a "no find, no fee" project, reported Sky News, but if the firm does find a substantive amount of wreckage it will receive $70 million (£56 million).

What happened to MH370?

The aircraft vanished in March 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, in what has become one of the greatest aviation mysteries in history. Efforts to locate the wreckage of the Boeing 777 have "sputtered over the years", said the BBC, leaving hundreds of families of those on board "haunted by the tragedy".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The missing flight MH370 was deliberately flown out into the Indian Ocean before disappearing – although why and by whom remains a mystery. A multinational effort that cost $150 million (£120 million) was called off in 2017 after two years of "scouring vast waters", said the broadcaster.

A 2018 investigation concluded that the plane's controls were probably deliberately manipulated to take it off course, but the report offered no conclusions about who was responsible, saying "the answer can only be conclusive if the wreckage is found".

Ten years and hundreds of millions of dollars after the plane's disappearance, it remains one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries, sparking endless speculation about its fate. Theories have included conjecture that the pilot deliberately brought down the plane, to suggestions that it had been shot down by foreign military.

Until definitive answers are found, it appears that the plane’s disappearance will remain a mystery and a favourite topic for conspiracists for years to come.

Timeline

8 March 2014

After leaving Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.41am local time, the Boeing 777 disappeared from radars. It was last seen heading west over the Straight of Malacca.

9 March 2014

Search efforts focus on the Gulf of Thailand. Two passengers travelling on stolen passports were investigated, but eliminated as suspects.

15 March 2014

Malaysia's prime minister, Najib Razak, says the jet was deliberately diverted and continued flying for more than six hours after contact with the ground was lost.

24 March 2014

The Malaysian government concludes it is "beyond all reasonable doubt" that MH370 is "lost" and "none of those on board survived".

26 June 2014

Authorities in Australia posit that the plane flew on autopilot after a catastrophic event led to the crew becoming incapacitated, possibly due to oxygen starvation.

28 January 2015

Malaysia formally declares the incident an accident and the passengers and crew are presumed dead, 327 days after the jet vanished.

5 August 2015

The first trace of the plane is found as Malaysian PM says a wing part that washed up on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean came from missing MH370.

30 March 2016

The Australian government reports that two pieces of debris made in separate discoveries in Mozambique are "highly likely to have come from MH370" after analysis finds both pieces to be consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft.

15 September 2016

It's confirmed that a large chunk of debris discovered on the island of Pemba, off the coast of Tanzania, was from MH370.

7 October 2016

Officials say a piece of aircraft wing flap found on Mauritius is from the missing plane.

17 January 2017

The underwater search for MH370 comes to an end, a decision that the governments of Malaysia, China and Australia say was "not taken lightly nor without sadness".

3 October 2017

Australian investigators publish their final report, saying the failure to bring closure for grieving relatives was a "great tragedy" and "almost inconceivable" in the "modern aviation era".

30 July 2018

An official investigation report in Malaysia says the plane was manually turned around in mid-air and "unlawful interference by a third party" could not be ruled out.

20 August 2018

Panel debris is found in Madagascar by a fisherman.

20 May 2024

Researchers at Cardiff University find signals captured on underwater microphones could be key to locating aeroplanes such as MH370 when they crash into the ocean.

20 December 2024

The Malaysian government agrees in principle to resume the search for the missing jet.