TRANSCRIPT
It is one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 - Flight MH370 - departed Kuala Lumpur on the 8th of March in 2014, bound for Beijing.
There were 12 crew members and 227 passengers on board, mostly Chinese nationals, but also 50 Malaysians and seven Australian citizens.
"Malaysian three-seven-zero maintaining level three-five-zero."
Air traffic control: "Malaysian three-seven-zero."
Air traffic control: "Malaysian three-seven-zero contact Ho Chin Minh decimal nine. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Malaysia three-seven-zero."
What you just heard are the final words spoken between air traffic control and Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, in the cockpit of MH370.
Military radar at the time showed the plane left its flight path to fly back over northern Malaysia, before going into the region of the Andaman Sea then turning south.
After that, all contact was lost - and the plane has never been found, save for three wing fragments that have washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean.
In December last year, the Malaysian government announced an agreement with UK and US based maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity to locate MH370, on a "no find no fee" basis.
Grace Nathan, whose mother was on the ill-fated plane, says that's good news.
"The fact that the search is on the brink of resuming again has finally been able to put hope on the table again. But even then, with hope, it's difficult for us to get excited or be overly hopeful because we've never had any success in the past. So it's sort of a tempered hope and a cautious hope that this time they will find something."
Ocean Infinity has already been a part of two other searches for the bulk of the missing plane.
The Malaysian government had previously maintained until there's no compelling evidence, they won't start looking again.
Now, Malaysia's Transport Minister Anthony Loke has told reporters the contract details between Malaysia and the firm are being finalised - and that there's hope with this renewed search.
"Ocean Infinity has given us that, number one, they combined all the findings from the various experts, various researchers, they have combined all the data. They feel very confident that the current search area is more credible. They are confident this area will come back with a positive result."
Sergio Cavaiuolo is a systems and electronics aerospace engineer who has been researching MH370 for years now, and is close friends with the sisters of Captain Zaharie.
A team from Ocean Infinity will be searching the sea for the plane in four so-called hotspots, 1,500km west of Perth.
But Sergio believes the final resting place of the plane is elsewhere.
"I don't believe they're actually going to find the plane again this time because of the research and investigations that I've done concluded the plane didn't actually come to the Southern Indian Ocean, but it was flying across the north west of the northern Indian Ocean.
A 495-page report into the missing flight by the Malaysian government's Flight 370 Safety Investigation team has suggested the Boeing 777's controls were probably deliberately manipulated to go off course.
But investigators could not determine who was responsible, saying that depended on finding the wreckage.
One of the widely known conspiracy theories suggests the plane's disappearance was a deliberate suicide attempt by Captain Zaharie.
Sergio Cavaiuolo says investigators have said there was nothing suspicious in the background, financial affairs, training and mental health of both the captain and co-pilot.
"I don't believe it was a suicide pilot in charge of the plane. I think that would be so unfair to the family to keep pushing that sort of theory. And until you find the wreckage and prove that it actually was or wasn't and obviously had, you know, have a good friendship with Captain Zaharie, his sisters, that's some of his family, and talked at great lengths and spent time with them over the years discussing it."
Peter Waring is a former Australian naval officer, seconded to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau to work as the deputy operations manager during the first search for MH370 in 2014.
"We managed to cover around about 100,000 square kilometers during my time with the search team. I left in September of 2015. And at the time I was somewhat dissatisfied with how the search had progressed. And I had been advocating rather strongly for a change of approach. And it's changed. It's never really come. You know, I feel in many ways that have just been doubling down on some of the same assumptions."
Mr Waring says he's not convinced the new search is justified - and that it is likely to be unsuccessful.
But he hopes to be wrong.
"I remain somewhat confused about what the basis of the new search is. I spoke with Oliver Plunkett in 2021, and he mentioned that that they had undertaken some research and by that my main Ocean experience undertaken some research and that the search area that came out of that research was quite close to where we had looked before and was also close to where the independent group was suggesting that the aircraft might be."
Mr Waring says the conditions Ocean Infinity's vessels are currently in - off the coast of Perth - are dangerous.
"It's not it's not great, frankly. If you go further south, it gets worse and worse. Where we were searching during the early part of the search was particularly dangerous. And we were also going, you know, year round."
Other families of the MH370 passengers and crew meanwhile say a resumed search is a step in the right direction.
Jacquita Gonzales is the wife of Patrick Gomes who was the MH370 in-flight supervisor.
She has told SBS her grandson Raphael, who was a toddler at the time of the plane's disappearance, now wears her husband's shoes.
"He was just three plus (when it happened) and he's grown. So managed to fit into his grandfather's work shoes now. So he wears it to church. It's a remembrance for him actually, like walking in his grandfather's shoes."
Ms Gonzales says they haven't heard anything from Ocean Infinity or the government yet on the search.
She says in the last decade the families of the passengers and crew have learned more from the media than government.
"If they are willing to share with us whatever they find now, happy where we're happy before anybody else finds outbound being the one directly involved, being the next of kin for the family members and for us to know last before anyone else, you know, I don't think that's right. At least let us know first."
Grace Nathan says she's never really been able to start the grieving process, and it has been difficult to bridge her feelings emotionally.
"So for a lot of us, we are in this in different stages of limbo. Like me personally, like I've always said in the past that I have not I still do not refer to my mother in the past tense, for example, because it's just something that I just naturally don't find myself doing and still even consciously cannot bring myself to do, even though I've done so many interviews, or maybe even in my logical mind, I know the chances are I'm not going to see her again."
Jacquita Gonzales says all that anybody wants is closure.
"We are waiting like the rest of the world. We think this mystery needs to actually not become a mystery any more."
