KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Twelve years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished with 239 people aboard, a renewed deep-sea search in the southern Indian Ocean has so far failed to locate the missing aircraft, Malaysian authorities said Sunday, as families pressed for the effort to continue.
The Air Accident Investigation Bureau said in a statement that a seabed search conducted by marine robotics company Ocean Infinity between March 2025 and January 2026 surveyed thousands of square kilometers of ocean floor but has not produced any confirmed findings of the aircraft wreckage.
Malaysia gave the nod to the Texas-based company last year to renew the search for Flight 370 under a "no-find, no-fee” contract at a new 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) site in the southern Indian Ocean where it was believed to have crashed. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered.
The search was carried out for 28 days in two phases — March 25–28 last year and Dec 31, 2025, to Jan 23 this year, covering about 7,571 square kilometers (2,923 square miles) of seabed, the bureau said. Weather periodically disrupted operations, it said.
"The search activities undertaken have not yielded any findings that confirm the location of the aircraft wreckage,” it said in a statement. It didn't give details on when the search will resume.
The Boeing 777 plane vanished 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. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.
Voice 370, representing the families of some of those aboard the missing plane, urged the government to extend Ocean Infinity's contract and to consider similar arrangements with other deep-sea exploration companies.
Although Ocean Infinity's contract runs until June, the group said the company's vessel has been redeployed for other work and is unlikely to return soon to complete the remaining search areas due to the approaching winter months and deteriorating sea conditions.
“The government pays nothing unless the aircraft is found. Any request by Ocean Infinity to extend the search contract should therefore be granted without hesitation,” it said in a statement. “If the present search is unsuccessful, we would also urge Malaysia to kindly consider extending similar no find, no fee opportunities to other capable deep sea exploration companies.”
The group vowed to “continue the fight for answers. We will never give up!"
FILE - A girl stands in front of a condolence message board during a Day of Remembrance for MH370 event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on March 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel renewed its assault on southern Lebanon early Sunday as the war entered its ninth day and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “many surprises” in the next phase of the conflict rippling across the region.
The latest strikes in Lebanon killed 12 more people, pushing the death toll there above 300 after Israel ordered large swaths of the country to evacuate during an offensive that its military said would be aimed at stamping out Iran-supported forces there.
Israel and the United States launched the war on Feb. 28, saying they were targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and suggesting they sought to topple the government. The conflict has since spread across the region, rattling global markets, disrupting air travel and leaving Iran’s leadership weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.
Iran has fired missiles and drones at neighboring countries in the Gulf, Israel has intensified attacks in Lebanon and strikes have reported from Cyprus to waters off of Sri Lanka.
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out the next phase of the war late Saturday, saying Israel aims to destabilize Iran’s regime and allow change in government, Israel launched another wave of strikes late Saturday, hitting an oil storage facility in Tehran — the first apparent strike on a civilian industrial site — sending pillars of fire into the night sky.
Iran has apologized for attacks on attacks on “neighboring countries,” even as its missiles and drones continued striking sites in Gulf states — including attacks that have killed civilians — and hard-liners signaled Tehran would not change course.
President Masoud Pezeshkian again struck a conciliatory tone on Sunday, calling Iran’s neighbors friends and brothers while accusing the United States and Israel of using “manipulation” to sow discord between them in remarks aired on state television.
“We will not bow our heads to bullying, injustice or intrusion,” he said.
Pezeshkian and other Iranian leaders have underlined the limited powers exercised by the theocracy’s leaders over the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which controls ballistic missiles used to target Israel and other countries. It answered only to Khamenei and appears to be picking its own targets. The president is one three members of a leadership council that has overseen Iran since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the war’s opening airstrikes.
A rift between politicians looking to de-escalate the war and others committed to battling the United States and Israel could complicate any diplomatic efforts.
Pezeshkian’s remarks came a day after he said the leadership council had been in touch with the armed forces and “from now on, they should not attack neighboring countries or fire missiles at them, unless we are attacked by those countries. I think we should solve this through diplomacy.”
The U.S. strikes have not come from the Gulf Arab governments under attack, but from U.S. bases and vessels in the region.
But hard-line judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, another member of the three-man council, suggested that war strategy will not change.
“The geography of some countries in the region — both overtly and covertly — is in the hands of the enemy, and those points are used against our country in acts of aggression. Intense attacks on these targets will continue,” he posted on X.
Pezeshkian also dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for Tehran to surrender unconditionally, saying: “That’s a dream that they should take to their grave.”
Trump threatened that Iran would be “hit very hard” and more “areas and groups of people” would become targets, without elaborating. Already, the conflict has rattled global markets and left Iran’s leadership weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.
“We’re not looking to settle,” Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One. “They’d like to settle. We’re not looking to settle.”
He described the ongoing U.S. operations in Iran as an “excursion” and said issues such as rising gas prices and the safety of Americans would improve once the conflict ends.
The U.S. and Israel have targeted Iran’s military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. The war’s stated goals and timelines have repeatedly shifted as the U.S. has at times suggested it seeks to topple Iran’s government or elevate new leadership.
The fighting has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 290 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six U.S. troops have been killed.
After Pezeshkian’s apology, Iranian strikes kept coming.
Bahrain says an Iranian drone attack caused “material damage” to a desalination plant — the first time an Gulf country said Iran has struck a desalination plant during the nine-day war.
Hundreds of desalination plants sit along the Persian Gulf coast, and the region relies heavily on them for their water.
Earlier Sunday, the United Arab Emirates said debris from an aerial interception fell onto a vehicle and killed a driver. Four people have now been killed in the UAE since the war began. Authorities have said all were foreign nationals.
The UAE urged residents to stay indoors Sunday morning as its military responded to a drone attack. In Kuwait, authorities said a wave of drones targeted critical infrastructure, including fuel tanks at Kuwait International Airport and a government building in Kuwait City. At least two people were killed by strikes in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Saudi Arabia said it destroyed a drone headed toward its vast Shaybah oil field on Sunday and shot down four drones over the capital, Riyadh, including one aimed at the diplomatic quarter. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said that missile fragments fell onto a road in Manama, injuring one person and causing damage to several shops.
Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, and Magdy from Cairo, Egypt. Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Amir-Hussein Radjy in Cairo, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Aamer Madhani in Doral, Florida, contributed reporting.
People take shelter as air raid sirens warning of incoming Iranian missiles in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Flames rise from an oil storage facility south of the capital Tehran as strikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke rise as strikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People check the damage left by Israeli airstrikes late Friday, in the village of Nabi Chit, eastern Lebanon, Saturday, March 7, 2026, where Israeli forces landed overnight and dug a grave in a cemetery searching for Israeli co-pilot Ron Arad who was captured and then went missing after his fighter jet crashed over south Lebanon in 1986. (AP Photo/Ali Salem)
Flames rise from an oil storage facility south of the capital Tehran as strikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israel military campaign, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
