Government body issues update on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 12 years after it vanished

It remains the deadliest case of aircraft disappearance ever, and 12 years after it’s believed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished from the skies above the Indian Ocean, the families of those on board are still looking for answers.

There were hopes that a new search would offer some sense of closure, with the United Kingdom's Air Accident Investigation Bureau offering an update on what this renewed investigation has found.

On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 left radar range some 370 km from Penang Island in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia.

The most expensive search in aviation history was soon underway, and although it was initially focused on the South China Sea and Andaman Sea, analysis of the plane's automated communications suggested it had been traveling southward over the southern Indian Ocean.

There have been various theories about what happened, and while some have been debunked, there were hopes that a search that ran intermittently from February 2025 to January 2026 would be more successful.

There have been multiple searches for MH370 over the years (ARIF KARTONO / Contributor / Getty)

Up there with the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, MH370 continues to baffle.

An initial three-year search spanned 120,000 km2 of ocean, eventually leading to the Joint Agency Coordination Centre suspending activities in January 2017. Still, this was just the start of MH370's story.

In early 2025, private contractor Ocean Infinity picked up where it had left off with a search that concluded in 2018. This time, it was taking on a $70 million endeavour under a 'no find, no fee' basis.

As per NPR, the hunt for MH370 has again been unsuccessful. Despite trawling a new site that covered a whopping 15,000-square-kilometers, the Air Accident Investigation Bureau has confirmed this combing of the seabed has failed to find any wreckage.

Without confirming when the search could resume, the bureau explained: "The search activities undertaken have not yielded any findings that confirm the location of the aircraft wreckage."

Voice 370 is an organisation representing the families and loved ones of the 239 missing occupants who flew on MH370, urging the government to keep extending Ocean Infinity's contract while also looking at employing other deep-sea exploration companies.

It's unclear when the search for the missing plane could resume (Anadolu / Contributor / Getty)

While there are calls for the search to continue, Ocean Infinity's contract is set to expire in June 2026, and its vessel has already been deployed on a different contract. If that wasn't enough, Ocean Infinity has suggested it might not return to the search due to deteriorating sea conditions in the upcoming winter months.

This echoes last year's situation when Malaysian Minister of Transport Anthony Loke said Ocean Infinity had to suspend its search.

Voice 370 added: "The government pays nothing unless the aircraft is found. Any request by Ocean Infinity to extend the search contract should therefore be granted without hesitation.

"If the present search is unsuccessful, we would also urge Malaysia to kindly consider extending similar no find, no fee opportunities to other capable deep-sea exploration."

Malaysian officials maintain that they "remain committed to keeping the families informed and will continue to provide updates as appropriate," although there's further disappointment as future searches are now cast into doubt.