KUALA LUMPUR (Kashmir English): The authorities have suspended the latest search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 as it is “not the season”, according to Kuala Lumpur’s transport minister.
The search has been suspended more than a decade after the plane went missing just to resume the operation at the end of the year.
“They have stopped the operation for the time being, they will resume the search at the end of this year,” Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a voice recording on Thursday.
“Right now, it’s not the season,” Loke said in the recording, which was made during an event at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Wednesday.
The Boeing 777, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014.
Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has not been found so far.
The Transport Minister’s comments come a little over a month after the authorities said the search had resumed, following earlier failed attempts that covered vast swaths of the Indian Ocean.
An initial Australia-led search covered an area of 120,000 square kilometres in the Indian Ocean over three years, but found hardly any trace of the plane besides a few pieces of debris.
Based in Britain and the US, maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity, led an unsuccessful search operation in 2018, before agreeing to launch a new search this year.
“Whether or not it will be found will be subject to the search, nobody can anticipate,” Loke said, referring to the wreckage of the plane.
Flight MH370 mystery
The Transporter Minister said in December last that a new 15,000 square kilometre area of the southern Indian Ocean would be wind-swept by Ocean Infinity.
The latest mission was conducted on the same “no find, no fee” basis as Ocean Infinity’s previous search. The government will only pay out if the firm finds the aircraft.
The plane’s sudden disappearance has long been the subject of theories — ranging from the credible to outlandish — including that veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had gone rogue.
A 2018 report into the tragedy pointed to failings by air traffic control and said the course of the plane was changed manually.
Chinese made up two-thirds of the total passengers, while the others were from Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, and elsewhere.
