A HIGH-TECH vessel run by a US exploration firm is en route to resume the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, in a new bid to solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

The jet disappeared with 239 people on board in March 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, after diverting from its flight path.

No sign of the plane was found in a 120,000 sq km zone selected by satellite analysis of the jet’s likely trajectory, and the Australian-led hunt – the largest in aviation history – was called off in January last year.

But, it looks set to resume soon.

Research vessel Seabed Constructor, leased by exploration firm Ocean Infinity, had set off from South Africa for the Indian Ocean with the aim of arriving in the search zone by the middle of the month, a source familiar with the matter said.

It is hoped that by this time, the Malaysian government and Ocean Infinity would have finalised a deal for the hunt to resume.

Deputy Transport Minister Ab Aziz Kaprawi said negotiations for the firm to restart the hunt on a “no find, no fee” basis were in the final stages.

“They (Ocean Infinity) know we are very serious in taking their offer,” he told AFP.

A spokesman for the company added: “The company is awaiting the final contract award before the search recommences.”

Ocean Infinity was one of three companies that had bid to resume the hunt.

The source, who declined to be identified, said the firm had decided to send the Seabed Constructor, a Norwegian research vessel, to the southern Indian Ocean so that it was ready to start searching in a window of good weather expected this month and next month.

The vessel is carrying several autonomous submarines that can be launched from the boat to scour the seabed for fragments of the jet.

Australia’s national science body, CSIRO, released a report in April last year, suggesting that the doomed plane was “most likely” north of the former search zone in an area of approximately 25,000 sq km.

Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found, all of them on western Indian Ocean shores, including a 2m wing part known as a “flaperon”. – AFP, January 3, 2018.