The Search for the Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight Will Continue in the Coming Month

More than a decade has passed since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished over the Indian Ocean. On Wednesday, Malaysia's transport ministry confirmed that Ocean Infinity has been granted permission to resume its deep-sea investigation for the missing aircraft starting December 30.

Despite a few small fragments washing ashore over the years, the main wreckage of the Boeing 777 has never been recovered. Ocean Infinity, a marine robotics company based in Austin, signed a $70 million "no-find, no-fee" agreement with Malaysia in March, but the search was halted weeks later due to adverse weather conditions.

Under the renewed plan, the company has 55 days to comb a large section of the ocean in hopes of locating the plane. Flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur in 2014, bound for Beijing, but veered eastward unexpectedly, then turned south over the Indian Ocean before vanishing from radar and satellite tracking. All 239 passengers and crew onboard are presumed lost.

Identifying the search zone has been Ocean Infinitys greatest challenge, likened to searching for a single needle among multiple haystacks. With limited resources, the company and the Malaysian government cannot scan the entire ocean, so defining a smaller focus area is crucial for improving the odds of success.

The original search area in 2014 spanned 122,000 square miles, roughly the size of New Mexico. In 2018, Ocean Infinity conducted a similar search over a Vermont-sized, 9,700-square-mile area without results. Returning this year, the team employed new technology to further refine the search zone.

The Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR), known as "whisper," analyzes subtle disruptions in low-power radio transmissions to trace a planes possible route. By interpreting where the flight affected radio signals, the company reduced the target search area to 5,800 square miles, comparable to the size of Connecticut.

The hope is that this focused effort will finally uncover the wreckage and provide closure to the families of those lost on Flight MH370.

Author: Natalie Monroe