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With families' support, U.S. company offers to search for MH370

By Ed Adamczyk
Operators aboard the Australian Defense Vessel Ocean Shield move the U.S. Navy's Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle into position for deployment on April 14, 2014, searching for a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 plane. File Photo by Peter D. Blair/U.S. Navy
Operators aboard the Australian Defense Vessel Ocean Shield move the U.S. Navy's Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle into position for deployment on April 14, 2014, searching for a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 plane. File Photo by Peter D. Blair/U.S. Navy | License Photo

Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A U.S. seabed exploitation company said Friday it's willing to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared more than three years ago with 239 people aboard -- at its own expense.

Ocean Infinity submitted a plan to the Malaysian government months ago to search for MH370 -- a Boeing 777 that went off course and disappeared as it traveled from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, Voice370, the support group for the passengers' families said. The exploration company, Houston-based Ocean Infinity, offered to undertake the project and "the economic risk" for a fee only if it finds the wreckage of the plane, CNN reported Friday.

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A years-long search of 46,000 square miles of ocean cost over $150 million and involved Malaysia, Australian and Chinese authorities. It found only three fragments of the plane's wings, washed up on beaches thousands of miles from the search site, before the search was abandoned in January.

The Ocean Infinity offer includes a search of a 9,700-square-mile area on the northern boundary of the last search zone, southwest of Australia. It uses deep-sea drones with sonar capabilities that can travel to a depth of 19,700 feet below the sea. A statement from Voice370 called Ocean Infinity's proposal a "win-win offer," and asked why the Malaysian government has not responded.

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Grace Nathan, a Malaysian lawyer whose mother was aboard the plane, told Sky News, "We are constantly in limbo. They [search authorities] do not engage us. It is upsetting and frustrating. We are always kept in the dark."

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