A family member of a passenger of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 writes on a memorial wall during a remembrance event marking the 10th anniversary of its disappearance at the Empire Subang in Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia, in 2024. Photo: Nazri Mohamad/EPA/File

The aircraft, a Boeing 777, was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished from radars shortly after takeoff on March 8, 2014, from Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, China.

“The search will focus on targeted areas assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft,” the Transport Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The ministry said the renewed search effort “underscores the Government of Malaysia’s commitment to providing closure to the families affected by the tragedy”, according to the official Bernama news agency.

Two-thirds of passengers on the ill-fated flight were Chinese, while the others were from Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and elsewhere.

Flight investigators said in a 495-page report into the disappearance that they did not know why the plane had vanished and refused to rule out the possibility that someone other than the pilots had diverted the jet from its scheduled route.

Satellite data showed the plane diverted from its flight path and headed south, to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have run out of fuel and crashed.

Initially, an Australia-led search operation scoured 120,000sq km (46,300sq miles) of ocean over three years, but only some pieces of possible debris were found along the coastlines in East African and Indian Ocean countries, including Mozambique, Madagascar and Reunion Island.

The most recent search for MH370 wrapped up in early April due to bad weather after several weeks of fruitless underwater reconnaissance by the maritime exploration company Ocean Infinity.

Ocean Infinity, which also led an unsuccessful search in 2018, will restart its hunt for the missing airliner on December 30, Bernama reported.

Malaysia’s government agreed in March to a “no-find, no-fee” contract with the United Kingdom and United States-based Ocean Infinity to resume a seabed search operation at a new 15,000sq km (5,800sq miles) site in the Indian Ocean, The Associated Press news agency reported.

Ocean Infinity will be paid a $70m fee only if substantial amounts of plane wreckage are discovered.

Relatives of the passengers and crew have lobbied for years for the hunt to continue and have demanded compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce, and the Allianz insurance group, among others.