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Loke: Ocean Infinity's proposal to resume MH370 search will consider new lead by UK researchers

PORT KLANG: Ocean robotics company Ocean Infinity's proposal to resume the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will take into consideration a new lead regarding the aircraft's final location.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the ministry is currently reviewing the proposal before presenting it to the cabinet.

"Any new information will certainly be considered by Ocean Infinity, which is the company responsible for and involved in the search mission.

"They have an underwater submarine to look for and detect where the airplane is. We have indeed had discussions with Ocean Infinity, and they have proposed (resuming the search)," Loke told a press conference after attending the launch event of the maiden voyage of the M.V. MTT Bintangor, here.

On June 20, the media reported about a group of researchers from Cardiff University who picked up a signal around the same time as when Flight MH370 was believed to have crashed on March 8, 2014. The team obtained the signal using an underwater microphone known as a hydrophone.

The research had considered several factors such as the effects of rough seas at the time and how such an incident involving the Boeing 777-200 aircraft was capable of creating acoustic sounds that can travel through the water to hydrophones on the ocean floor.

The United Kingdom's Independent portal, which quoted a member of the team from Cardiff University, reported that if the plane crashed at a speed of 200 meters per second, it would release kinetic energy similar to a small earthquake.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 vanished from the radar after two hours of flying.

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.

In 2018, Ocean Infinity embarked on a three-month 'no find, no fee' search covering about 112,000 sqkm of the southern Indian Ocean. It concluded without any discovery.

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