Marine robotics firm will resume deep-sea search for MH370 plane that vanished a decade ago

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia's transport ministry said Wednesday that a private firm will resume a deep-sea hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 later this month, more than a decade after the jet vanished without a trace.

The search will be carried out by Texas-based marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity, which signed a new “no-find, no-fee” contract with Malaysia's government in March.

It is unclear if the company has new evidence of the plane’s location. Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett reportedly said last year that the company had improved its technology since 2018, when the firm made its first seabed search operation under a similar deal and found nothing. Punkett has said the firm is working with many experts to analyze data and had narrowed the search area to the most likely site.

Earlier this year the firm restarted the seabed search operation at a new 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) site in the Indian Ocean after Malaysia’s government gave it the greenlight, but the search was halted in April due to bad weather.

Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered.

The Boeing 777 plane disappeared from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. Apart from those small fragments, no bodies or wreckage have ever been found.

Malaysia's transport ministry said in a brief statement Wednesday that Ocean Infinity will search intermittently from Dec. 30 for a total of 55 days, in targeted areas believed to have the highest likelihood of finding the missing aircraft.

“The latest development underscores the government of Malaysia’s commitment in providing closure to the families affected by this tragedy,” it said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, “We ... appreciate the efforts made by the Malaysian side.”

Ocean Infinity declined to comment on the search Wednesday in response to an Associated Press email requesting details.

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed.

FILE - A family member of passengers on board of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 holds a flower during the tenth annual remembrance event at a shopping mall, in Subang Jaya, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, March 3, 2024. (AP Photo/FL Wong, File)

FILE - Flight officer Rayan Gharazeddine scans the water in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia from a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion during a search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on March 22, 2014. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File)wld

TORONTO (AP) — Canada's ambassador to the U.S. for the last six years said Tuesday she's resigning next year as the two major trading partners plan to review the free trade agreement.

Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said in a letter it is the right time to put in place someone who will oversee talks about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that is up review in 2026.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Hillman “prepared the foundations for Canada in the upcoming review" of the agreement.

Carney noted she’s one of the longest-serving ambassadors to the United States in Canada's history.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Hillman in 2017. She was the first woman appointed to the role.

Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term and worked with U.S. and Chinese officials to win the release of two Canadians detained in China.

Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, and Hillman had been leading trade talks with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

Trump ended trade talks with Carney in October after the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff advertisement in the U.S., which upset the U.S. president. That followed a spring of acrimony, since abated, over Trump's insistence that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.

Asked this week when trade talks would resume, Trump said, “we'll see.”

Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and more than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. Most exports to the U.S. are exempted by the USMCA trade agreement but that deal is up for review.

Carney aims to double non-U.S. trade over the next decade.

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.

FILE - Ambassador of Canada to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman listens during a First Ministers' meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, Jan. 15, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP, File)