Malaysia says it will resume search for wreckage of missing Flight MH370

By Ashley Tang

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia has agreed in principle to resume the search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, its transport minister said on Friday, more than 10 years after it disappeared in one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.

Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the proposal to search a new area in the southern Indian Ocean came from exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which had also conducted the last search for the plane that ended in 2018.

The firm will receive $70 million if wreckage found is substantive, Loke told a press conference.

"Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin," he said.

"We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families."

Malaysian investigators initially did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course.

Debris, some confirmed and some believed to be from the aircraft, has washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.

More than 150 Chinese passengers were on the flight, with relatives demanding compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce and the Allianz insurance group among others.

Malaysia engaged Ocean Infinity in 2018 to search in the southern Indian Ocean, offering to pay up to $70 million if it found the plane, but it failed on two attempts.

That followed an underwater search by Malaysia, Australia and China in a 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq mile) area of the southern Indian Ocean, based on data of automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the plane.

(Reporting by Ashley Tang; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by John Mair)