KUALA LUMPUR: Ocean Infinity will propose to embark on another search for missing plane MH370 to Transport Minister Anthony Loke within the coming weeks.
Ocean Infinity chief executive officer Oliver Plunkett expressed hope for the search to resume on their new "Armada" vessel in the Southern Indian Ocean.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, before it went off radar.
The plane, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, have yet to be found.
Underwater searches for the plane in the Indian Ocean have covered 120,000 sq km and cost about RM605 million.
The search was suspended in January 2017.
It has been recorded as the most expensive search effort in aviation history.
At the 9th Annual MH370 Remembrance Event 2023 held by the passengers' next of kins, Plunkett said they were ready to begin the search in the summer, subject to the government's support and agreement.
"Last year I visited the then transport minister (Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong) to share the details of the work we had done up until that point and to signal our desire to restart the search.
"That minister repeated that he wanted to see credible new evidence, an expression we have discussed many times and I'm not entirely sure I understand the purpose of the hurdle given.
"I have in my email inbox a draft proposal setting out both the basis upon which we will proceed as well our view of the new evidence and analysis available," he said in a speech read by a next of kin of an MH370 flight crew, V. P. R. Nathan.
Plunkett said there was a material cost by undertaking a search and Ocean Infinity was a business with salaries and other expenses to pay.
"I believe it is inherently fair to ask that if we deliver something the government wants and benefits from, they should pay for it. My sincere hope is that we are able to agree terms with the minister."
In 2018, Ocean Infinity embarked on a three-month 'no cure, no fee' search covering about 112,000 sq km at the southern Indian Ocean.
It concluded without any new discovery.
Meanwhile, family members have called on the government to resume the search and help them find closure.
Grace Subatharai Nathan who lost her mother Anne Daisy, who was a passenger on the flight, said if the truth was not uncovered, Malaysia would not be able to prevent a similar incident.
"So much has happened in nine years. There was an unborn baby as a next of kin was expecting when the plane disappeared. That baby is now going to school and is in Standard One or Two, that's how much time has passed.
"I was a student at the time and now am a mother. Others are grandparents, husbands but what we've always said is MH370 is not history, it's the future.
"If we don't know what happened to MH370, we cannot prevent it from happening again.
"Today it's us, tomorrow it (similar incident) could happen to anyone who boards a plane. That should be prevented at all costs. This is not a mystery that should be left a mystery forever, it is just not acceptable," she said.