MH370 search ends – probably – without finding missing 777

Further efforts to find MH370, the Malaysian airlines Boeing 777 missing since March 2014, have again failed to find the plane.

Oliver Plunkett, the CEO of Ocean Infinity, a company conducting a no-find-no-fee search on behalf of the Malaysian government, on Tuesday said the search will shortly end without having found the plane.

The extended search covered over 25,000km² of the Indian Ocean, including areas outside the original search zone suggested as more likely resting places for the plane. Plunkett said that search his company conducted covered that area and plenty more, making it almost as extensive than the original search.

But even that effort turned up nothing.

The original search area was chosen after analysis of satellite handshakes, but an alternative search zone suggested by modelling drift patterns of debris from the plane wasn’t searched until Ocean Infinity offered to do so.

All manner of theories about the plane’s fate are now circulating, some of them involving conspiracies to keep the plane's fate a secret. Some point to the fact that the plane’s pilot flew a simulated route over the Indian Ocean as evidence of a murder/suicide. Others say the plane went elsewhere.

All that is certain is that the families of the 12 crew and 227 passengers still want answers.

They may yet get them because Ocean Infinity called off the search due to winter weather making further operations dangerous. But it’s unclear at this time if any nation or entity will fund further searches. ®