PUTRAJAYA: The government will review the current search efforts for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, and possibly cancel it if is deemed unnecessary.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, speaking to the media after chairing the Cabinet meeting, said the government would review the matter and did not discount the possibility of terminating the search effort.
"We want to know the details. What is the necessity for this? If we find that it is not necessary, we will not renew it (contract)," he said, referring to the contract with a United States-based company, which has been engaged to search for the missing jetliner.
On March 8, 2014, flight MH370 with 239 people on board, had dropped off radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, sparking a massive search in the southern Indian Ocean which ended in January 2017.
The previous government had engaged US exploration company Ocean Infinity, whose search vessel, Seabed Constructor, has already covered 86,000 square kilometers of seabed in the southern Indian Ocean without success, according to the latest weekly report on the operation. Ocean Infinity’s search began on Jan 19 and is on a ‘no find, no fee’ basis.
Report by Azura Abas, Manirajan Ramasamy, Mohd Husni Mohd Noor, Ooi Tee Ching and Hazwan Faisal Mohamad