MALAYSIA may resume the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 next week after an American seabed-exploration firm made a “no find, no fee” offer, reports Channel Nine news.

Putrajaya is ready to accept Ocean Infinity’s offer following the end of a two-year search in the southern Indian Ocean and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s (ATSB) final report released on October 3.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said earlier Malaysia required new credible leads before embarking on new search efforts for the ill-fated flight, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 passengers and crew members.

He said a few seabed exploration firms, including Ocean Infinity and the Dutch maritime surveyor Fugro, had offered to help in the search for MH370 after the scouring of a 74,000 sq km remote seabed area in the southern Indian Ocean was suspended in January.

Ocean Infinity made a “no find, no fee” offer and will deploy six underwater vehicles at depths of up to 6,000m to gather data at “record-breaking speeds”.

Some pieces of wreckage have washed ashore on coastlines around the Indian Ocean, including Madagascar and Reunion Island where a wing fragment called a flaperon was found in 2015.

In August, ATSB said it has pinpointed the site of the Boeing 777 wreckage, narrowing it down to a 5000 sq km area about 2,000km from Perth.

Drift modelling released late last year identified an area of 25,000sq km just outside the original search area.

Malaysia, Australia and China suspended a nearly three-year search in the southern Indian Ocean on January 17 after it failed to find any trace of the missing plane. Malaysia has spent nearly RM500 million on search for MH370 search over the past three years. – October 17, 2017.