MH370 Five Months On: What is Next for Malaysia Airlines?

Five months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the airline has announced it will be delisted from the stock market and placed under government control.

The news comes amid suggestions it will be renamed, in an attempt to detoxify after the disasters this year.

On 8 March, flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers on board, while on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Based on satellite data, it is believed that the plane ended its flight in the southern Indian Ocean but no wreckage or debris has yet been found.

Just over four months later, flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine while travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.

Malaysia's state investor Khazanah Nasional said on Friday that it planned to nationalise the troubled airline, in which it already has a 69% stake. It will conduct a "complete overhaul" of its operations.

Meanwhile, Australian authorities have announced Dutch oil industry services firm Fugro is to lead Australia's search of the Indian Ocean seafloor, where missing MH370 is believed to lie.

It is hoped that the next phase of the search will help solve the mystery of the plane's disappearance five months ago.

Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said Australia was "cautiously optimistic" that the investigators will locate the missing aircraft in the search zone.

Australia awarded Fugro the lead commercial contract to use its deepsea survey vessels for the search, after months of unsuccessful searching by up to two dozen countries revealed no trace of the missing Boeing 777.

According to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the operation is likely to begin in early September and will last around 12 months.

Underwater drones will scan over 60,000 square kilometres of the southern Indian Ocean for any sign of the plane, concentrating on an area in close proximity to the 7th arc, which reaches from latitude 20 degrees south to 39 degrees south.

Investigators believe that MH370 reached the arc after exhausting its fuel supply and ended flight in the ocean, no more than 38km west or 55km east of the arc.