The Malaysia government expects the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to end in June or July if the plane is not found beforehand. The contract with search firm Ocean Infinity lasts for 90 days on a “no cure, no fee” basis but a senior Malaysian government official told reporters on Saturday that this did not include the time the high-tech vessel Seabed Constructor spends resupplying. “The vessel has a working cycle of 26 days before it needs to refuel and resupply,” Civil Aviation Authority chairman Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said at a memorial event in Malaysia marking the fourth anniversary of the plane’s disappearance with 239 souls on board. READ MH370: What happened on board. Debris hunter Blaine Gibson said Azharuddin had made it clear the clock was not running when the Seabed Constructor was in port or in transit to and from the search area. “This is big and very good news,’’ he said. New agency Reuters also quoted the Malaysian CAA chairman as saying plans to recover the Boeing 777’s wreckage or its flight recorders, in the event the aircraft is found, would be finalized in two weeks. It would involve several Malaysian and Australian agencies and Malaysia would take custody of any parts recovered from the seabed, he said. The search, which started late in January, will soon begin to face the harsh winter weather of the Southern Indian Ocean. This will make it more difficult for the vessel to launch and retrieve the eight Hugin autonomous underwater vehicles it uses to scour the ocean floor. “We expect the MH370 search handled by Ocean Infinity would be completed around June or July of this year and it involves an area of 25,000 square kilometre,’’ Azharuddin said in a report by Malaysia’s New Straits Times. “As such, it is too early for us to conclude the possibility that the search efforts for the MH370 in the Indian Ocean will be met with failure.” The ongoing search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370  has moved on from the zone containing crash sites favored by CSIRO scientists to sweep a second area of the 25,000 sq. km search region and has since moved into a tertiary area. A fifth update posted Tuesday by Malaysia’s MH370 Response Team said 8200 sq. km had been covered by February 25 with no significant contacts identified to date. An update by one the experts monitoring the search, Richard E. Cole, said the search was beginning to reach "the steeper contours and greater depths of Broken Ridge plateau".

Ocean Infinity’s “no cure, no fee” deal sees it paid $US20 million if the debris is found in the 5000 sq. km primary search area, $US30m in the 10,000 sq, km secondary zone and $US50m in the 10,000 sq, km tertiary area. The three zones make up a 25,000 sq.m area defined in ATSB’s report but OI will get $US70m if it locates the debris outside this zone. A number of experts have suggested this is where the missing plane may be. READ: MH370 search moves into second zone. The new search was launched after an Australian led-operation failed to find the plane in an initial 120,000 sq. km search zone.