There are 122 Chinese citizens on the flight. So far, dozens of family members have not signed a settlement letter or received compensation.

  The biggest mystery in the history of world aviation is still sleeping in the deep ocean.

  On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China lost connection with 239 people on board.

On January 29, 2015, the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia announced the crash of the airliner and presumed that all the people on board were killed.

  However, a British aeronautical engineer said recently that he used data from multiple scientific fields to estimate the possible crash location of MH370.

  The British aviation engineer is named Richard Godfrey (Richard Godfrey), and has been working on the search for Malaysia Airlines flights for more than 7 years.

His latest research suggests that the Boeing 777 crashed in the Indian Ocean 2,000 kilometers west of Perth, Western Australia.

  This sea area roughly corresponds to the final trajectory area of ​​the aircraft previously identified by most experts.

MH370 "disappeared" from the air traffic control radar 38 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

However, analysis of satellite and radar data indicated that it continued to fly for another 7 hours.

  There are 122 Chinese citizens on board MH370.

Lawyer Zhang Qihuai, who represented the family members of some of the victims in China, told China Business News on December 5 that the lawsuits regarding the Malaysia Airlines MH370 case have not yet been completed, and "the validity period is still in progress and the lawsuit is still in progress."

  At present, there are still dozens of family members of Chinese passengers who have not signed the settlement letter and confiscated the compensation.

  Seven years of persistent search

  Since the plane was lost in 2014, more than 30 pieces of suspected aircraft wreckage have been found on the coast of the Indian Ocean, but only three pieces have been highly confirmed to come from MH370.

  In the past seven years, China, Malaysia, Australia and other countries have never "terminated" investigations, and will resume search work once there are reliable clues.

But at present, countries have only found a very limited number of wreckage (or suspected wreckage) of MH370.

The most important black boxes of evidence in the air crash investigation-flight data recorder and cockpit sound recorder have not been discovered so far.

No black box was found and the cause of the accident was not found, and the investigation was not terminated.

  Cross-domain data provided support for Godfrey's discovery.

He combined different data sets previously saved in different fields. The analysis results of these data sets all point to the location of the South Indian Ocean-95 degrees east longitude and 37 degrees south latitude, which is the possible fall of the Malaysia Airlines flight.

  Godfrey admitted that this is "complex work" and "there is a lot of data to filter."

His work combines Inmarsat (International Maritime Satellite Organization) satellite data, Boeing performance data, oceanographic floating debris drift data, and Weak Signal Propagation Report (WSPR) network data.

"In the past, we lacked horizontal thinking across multiple disciplines to combine these data for analysis." Godfrey said.

  For the past seven and a half years, Godfrey has spent hours searching almost every day.

He explained that the WSPR network can be used to track interference in radio waves.

Whenever an airplane passes through this network, it collects data on reflected or scattered radio waves.

  "It's like using filaments to form a net-like structure on the grassland. When you step on a specific filament, we can all find you. When you cross the grassland, we can trace your path." Lei said, "When these jamming signals are drawn together with the signals sent by the satellite to the aircraft, they can fill in some gaps and help us more accurately understand the location of the crash of MH370."

  Godfrey is also full of stories.

He is a founding member of the "MH370 Investigation" organization. He is also an engineer with a knowledge background in the construction of aircraft automatic landing systems and automatic driving systems.

  In 2009, he failed to board the missing Air France flight AF447 for some reason, which allowed him to get away with it.

Godfrey also became interested in flights and positioning lost at sea.

That year, Air France AF447 disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean on the way from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France.

Part of the wreckage was soon discovered, and eventually 216 passengers and 12 crew members were killed.

Two years later, the black box of AF447 was found on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

  Decades of experience in information systems and processing large amounts of data can help Godfrey analyze various data parameters of MH370.

He has been collaborating with a team for a year and has tested this new idea across multiple disciplines a lot.

"We are confident to apply it to the search for MH370." Godfrey said.

  The challenge of 4000 meters under the sea

  Such a "needle in a haystack" also requires huge investment.

After MH370 lost contact, Malaysia, China and Australia announced a joint underwater search in the South Indian Ocean.

The search is dominated by Australia, with a search area of ​​120,000 square kilometers and a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

  After an extensive search for flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean, these efforts did not yield any conclusive results.

The Australian Transportation Safety Board (ATSB) ended its participation in the underwater search of MH370 in October 2017.

  However, the closure of ATSB's search records has not hindered global efforts to search for flights.

Peter Foley, the head of international projects led by ATSB, who participated in the Three Kingdoms search, said: “Aircraft will be found one day because people will not give up searching.”

  In January 2018, the U.S. marine exploration company Ocean Infinity signed a contract with the Malaysian government to conduct the second round of MH370 search work, and stated that it "cannot find no charge", but it also ended in vain. The search was abandoned in May.

In 2019, Ocean Infinity stated that it will try to search for MH370 again, saying that its technology and system are "much better than 12 months ago."

  "These large amounts of capital investment are related to the search area, because this is not just a needle in a haystack, but even something that can be seen under a microscope in a haystack," Godfrey said.

  According to Godfrey’s latest flight crash location, the future search radius can be drastically reduced to 40 nautical miles, greatly reducing the difficulty of searching.

But Godfrey added that the depth of the wreckage of the aircraft can reach 4000 meters, which brings great difficulties to salvage.

"The wreck may be behind a cliff or in a canyon under the sea, and you may need to try to salvage it three or four times," he said.

  It is not easy to salvage the seabed at a depth of 4000 meters.

However, in the last round of searches, Ocean Infinity has used eight unmanned aerial vehicle-like cableless underwater robots, which can automatically search 6,000 meters underwater.

Each robot is equipped with scanning sonar, echo sounder, high-definition camera and other detection equipment.

  Godfrey admitted that although the scope of the salvage has been reduced, the new search job also faces funding problems.

In addition, they will also design and evaluate the availability of detection and salvage equipment and sea conditions, and decide when to initiate the search.

"We hope to enter the South Indian Ocean in the summer in the southern hemisphere, which is about a year later," Godfrey said. "We can't raise that much money in a short period of time."

  Seeking government financial support is one way.

The Malaysian government has stated that if a company provides viable or reliable leads, Malaysia will consider restarting the search for MH370.

Godfrey also said: "Any decision to resume the search for the aircraft should be made by the Malaysian government, because that country is the country where the aircraft is registered."

  On March 3, 2019, Malaysian Transport Minister Lu Zhaofu stated at the 5th anniversary of the loss of MH370 in Kuala Lumpur that if there are feasible suggestions or credible clues from private companies, Malaysia will consider resuming the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

  On March 7, 2021, Malaysian Minister of Transport Wei Jiaxiang issued a statement that the Malaysian government will continue to cooperate with China and Australia to seek the truth of the matter.

Once new strong evidence appears, the search operation will be restarted, and the families of the victims will be notified as soon as there are any new developments and major discoveries.

  Regarding the statute of limitations, in accordance with Chinese law, if the aircraft search fails, it may result in "suspended statute of limitations", or the request of the passenger's family will result in "interrupted statute of limitations."

If the statute of limitations is suspended, the statute of limitations period will continue to be calculated from the day when the reasons for the suspension of the statute of limitations are eliminated.

If the statute of limitations is suspended, the statute of limitations shall be recalculated from the time of suspension.

  Dr. Ian MacLeod, a shipwreck expert and a researcher at the Museum of Western Australia, said it was only a matter of time before MH370 was found.

"As new information continues to be exposed, the government's attitude will change, and they will go back to find it again." McLeod said.

  For the families of the victims of the missing flight, any new breakthrough in MH370 gives them a glimmer of hope, even though they are not sure they will be able to find their relatives.

Grace Nathan, who lost her mother in the air crash, said: "It is in the interest of global aviation safety to find this plane so that we can prevent similar disasters in the future."

  Author: Qian Tongxin ▪ Chen Shanshan