The maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity has suspended the search for the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, claiming it is “not the season.”

This announcement from Malaysia’s Transport Minister comes less than six weeks after the new search was commenced, following the plane’s disappearance over a decade ago.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke stated, “[Ocean Infinity] have stopped the operation for the time being, they will resume the search at the end of this year… right now, it’s not the season. Whether or not it will be found will be subject to the search, nobody can anticipate.”

The Boeing 777 flight, which had 239 people aboard, disappeared from radar screens while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. What followed was the largest search in aviation history, but the wreckage of the plane has remained lost.

A little over a month ago, authorities announced they had resumed the search following multiple failed attempts to cover the Indian Ocean. Australia led the first search, which spent three years trawling 46,300 square miles of the Indian Ocean, to no discovery, bar some possible debris. Ocean Infinity, which is based in Britain and the United States, then led their first unsuccessful search in 2018.

Relatives of passengers aboard the flight previously expressed excitement and hope that the new search would yield new findings and bring closure.

A final report into the incident was released in 2018 and pointed to failings by air traffic control, alleging that the course of the plane was changed manually. Investigators said they had not ruled out any possibilities regarding whether a passenger disturbed the pilot or the pilot went rogue. 

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Article by Baila Eve Zisman

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