The daughter of a passenger aboard missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has revealed she is “grateful” as a “promise” is set to finally be fulfilled.
Deep-sea exploration company Ocean Infinity has launched a new probe into the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, reviving hope for families of the 239 missing passengers and crew.
“We are very grateful that our transport minister fulfilled his promise to be committed to the search for MH370 as well as for the continued perseverance and dedication from Ocean Infinity,” Grace Subathirai Nathan told This Week in Asia.
The search vessel Armada 7806 arrived in the southern Indian Ocean early Wednesday, just days before the 11th anniversary of the plane’s disappearance.
The new search has been welcomed by families who have waited 11 years for answers about what happened to their loved ones
GETTY
This marks Ocean Infinity’s second attempt to locate the aircraft that vanished on March 8, 2014, in what many consider the biggest mystery in civil aviation history.
Ocean Infinity will deploy autonomous underwater vehicles to search four “hotspots” within a 15,000 sq km area of the southern Indian Ocean.
The search zone is located approximately 1,500km west of Perth, Australia which is where the company believes MH370 likely ended its journey, based on its analysis.
The Armada 7806 is carrying submersible autonomous vessels that will be used to scour the seabed for any signs of the missing aircraft.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Grace Subathirai Nathan, whose mother Daisy Ann was on board the ill-fated flight, expressed relief at the search’s resumption.
“We are very grateful that our transport minister fulfilled his promise to be committed to the search for MH370 as well as for the continued perseverance and dedication from Ocean Infinity,” she told This Week in Asia.
“It is hard to have expectations after everything we have been through in the last 11 years,” Grace added.
“My deepest hope remains that the plane is found and this mystery is solved so that we can prevent something like this from happening again in the future.”
MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, just one hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, carrying 239 passengers and crew, with two-thirds of passengers being Chinese nationals.
The aircraft was also carrying passengers from Malaysia, Australia, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Ukraine, the Netherlands and the United States
GETTY
Despite years of searching, teams of local and international investigators have found few leads as to what happened with two previous search operations yielding minimal clues.
Air crash investigators determined that the plane’s transponder, used to track its location, was manually switched off before it veered off course.
The aircraft was also carrying passengers from Malaysia, Australia, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Ukraine, the Netherlands and the United States.
Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke welcomed Ocean Infinity’s initiative to begin the search.
The Government had “welcomed the proactiveness of Ocean Infinity” to start operations, Loke said on Tuesday.