FMT received a copy of an email that was forwarded to some of the families of MH370 victims which stated that the authorities had decided to negotiate terms with Ocean Infinity.
It was recently reported that Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Malaysia had received proposals from Ocean Infinity as well as the Dutch company, Fugro, and an unidentified Malaysian company to continue the search for the missing aircraft.
Ocean Infinity grabbed headlines when they offered a “no-find, no-fee” offer to search for MH370.
Dutch company Fugro, which was involved in the earlier two-year search effort, had asked for a “low fee”.
Ocean Infinity was reported to be using six HUGIN autonomous underwater vehicles which are capable of operating at depths of up to 6,000 metres. They will collect high-resolution data at “record-breaking speeds”.
Australia, China and Malaysia, which jointly coordinated and funded the search operation led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), announced in January that it had called off the A$200 million (RM660 million) search for MH370 despite the protests of families of those on board.
The disappearance of the Boeing 777 on March 8, 2014, on a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, has become one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
MH370 had 239 passengers and crew members on board.
The aircraft was thought to have been diverted thousands of miles off course out over the southern Indian Ocean before crashing about 2,000km off the coast of Western Australia.