12-Year Search for Missing Flight MH370 Yields No New Leads as Families Demand Closure

KUALA LUMPUR – More than a decade has passed since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 souls aboard. Despite a renewed search in the southern Indian Ocean, the mystery remains unsolved. Malaysian authorities announced on Sunday that the recent efforts to locate the aircraft have yet to bear fruit, prompting families of the missing to urge for continued searches.

The Air Accident Investigation Bureau shared that the latest endeavor, conducted by the marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity, spanned from March 2025 to January 2026. This extensive operation covered thousands of square kilometers of the ocean floor but has, unfortunately, not yielded any confirmed traces of the aircraft’s wreckage.

Last year, Malaysia greenlit Ocean Infinity’s bid to resume the search for Flight 370 with a “no-find, no-fee” agreement. The contract stipulates that the company will receive $70 million only if they succeed in discovering the wreckage. The search focused on a new target area of 15,000 square kilometers (5,800 square miles) in the southern Indian Ocean, believed to be the crash site.

The search efforts unfolded over 28 days across two distinct phases: from March 25 to 28 in the previous year, and then from December 31, 2025, to January 23 this year. During this period, approximately 7,571 square kilometers (2,923 square miles) of the seabed were examined. The bureau noted that adverse weather conditions occasionally hampered operations.

“The search activities undertaken have not yielded any findings that confirm the location of the aircraft wreckage,” the statement concluded, leaving the timeline for any subsequent search efforts undetermined.

The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.

Voice 370, representing the families of some of those aboard the missing plane, urged the government to extend Ocean Infinity’s contract and to consider similar arrangements with other deep-sea exploration companies.

Although Ocean Infinity’s contract runs until June, the group said the company’s vessel has been redeployed for other work and is unlikely to return soon to complete the remaining search areas due to the approaching winter months and deteriorating 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,” it 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 group vowed to “continue the fight for answers. We will never give up!”