Norwegian ship resumes search for missing plane

News from Norway

Photo: Swire Seabed
The Seabed Constructor, a Norwegian civilian survey vessel, will look for the wreckage of Malaysian airlines flight MH370.

M. Michael Brady
Asker, Norway

On Jan. 10, the Malaysian government signed an agreement with a Houston-based private company, Ocean Infinity, to start a new search in the Southern Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysian airlines flight MH370.

On March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people aboard. That triggered one of the greatest-ever searches in aviation history. It found only three confirmed fragments of the MH370, all on the shores of the Western Indian Ocean. For lack of more substantial finds, the search was suspended in January last year.

The search will now be resumed, using the Seabed Constructor, the world’s most advanced civilian survey vessel. It was built by Kleven Verft AS, a Norwegian shipbuilder, to order for Swire Seabed, a dredging and seabed surveying company in Bergen, Norway, that in turn chartered it out to Ocean Infinity of Houston.

According to contract, Ocean Infinity will search an approximately 9,600 square mile priority area on a “no-cure, no-fee” basis, which means that it will be paid only if MH370 is found. The payment will be $20 million if the plane is located within 1,930 square miles, $30 million if it is located within 3,861 square miles, and $50 million if it is located within 9,652 square miles. A find outside that area will lead to a payment of $70 million.

This article originally appeared in the Jan. 26, 2018, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.