MH370 Search: ‘High Possibility’ Debris In Mozambique Is From A Boeing 777

AN object that could be debris from a Boeing 777 has been found off Mozambique and could belong to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.The debris, approximately one-metre in length, will be transferred to Australia for examination and analysis.US blogger Blaine Gibson made the discovery off the coast of Mozambique in south-east Africa after consulting oceanography experts at Curtin University in Western Australia.Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi, said Mr Gibson had come to see him last year to discuss drift modelling prepared by the university, and he had also spoken to MH370 families during his visit.Prof Pattiaratchi was able to advise Mr Gibson on the most likely places where more debris might be found, Mozambique being high on the list.“We’d forecast debris would reach the Mozambique Channel and Mozambique by last August or September at the earliest,” said Prof Pattiaratchi.“It is absolutely no surprise something has now been found, and I would feel quite certain it will be from MH370.”Federal Transport Minister Darren Chester confirmed the discovery was consistent with drift modelling undertaken by experts advising on the MH370 search.It will be two years next Tuesday since the aircraft disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.Malaysia’s transport minister Liow Tiong Lai said the origin of the item was “yet to be confirmed and verified”, but tweeted there was a “high possibility” it was from MH370.“Based an early reports, high possibility debris found in Mozambique belongs to a B777,” Liow Tiong Lai tweeted.An American tourist who has been blogging about MH370 found the debris on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel, NBC reported.Joao de Abreu, president of Mozambique’s Civil Aviation Institute (IACM), said no positive identification of the piece had been made.“We received this afternoon a piece of plane that was brought by an American visitor named Blaine Gibson,” Mr de Abreu said.“He said he had been walking on the beach two days ago and found the piece near Vilankulo, on a sand bank called Paluma near Benguerra Island (part of the Bazaruto archipelago).”The finding comes just days before the two-year anniversary of the disappearance of MH370.Mozambican authorities said the debris was found near the coastal town of Vilankulo in Inhambane province; the same corner of the southern Indian Ocean where the only confirmed piece of debris, a flaperon, was found last July.“We can’t confirm categorically that this small piece belongs to the (MH370) plane,” Paulo Teimezira, inspector of aeronautic materials at the civil aviation department in Maputo, said.Mr Teimezira also denied reports the object was on its way to Malaysia for further examination, saying it was still in Mozambique. He said more information would be released on Thursday.Citing US, Malaysian and Australian investigators who had seen photos of the object, NBC reported the debris (which had the words “NO STEP” on it) could be a horizontal stabiliser — a winglike part attached to the tail.Malaysia’s transport minister Liow Tiong Lai said Malaysia was working with Australia, which is co-ordinating an Indian Ocean search for the ill-fated jumbo jet, to retrieve the debris for closer study.“I urge everyone to avoid undue speculation as we are not able to conclude that the debris belongs to MH370 at this time,” he said.Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre said it was aware of the discovery and is in the process of arranging a thorough examination.Australia currently has four ships currently with those vessels searching about 85,000 square kilometres of the sea floor already.

The find comes just days before the two-year anniversary of MH370’s disappearance.If confirmed, this would be the second piece of debris found from MH370, which vanished on March 8, 2014 while on a routine overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew aboard.Last July, a man on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion found a wing fragment that experts later determined came from MH370.Investigators believe the plane rerouted to the southern Indian Ocean, where it crashed, but no site has been found and the cause of the disaster remains unknown.Theories of what happened include a hijacking, rogue pilot action, or sudden mechanical problem that incapacitated the crew, but there is nothing to support any one theory.Families of passengers accuse Malaysia Airlines and the Malaysian government of allowing the plane to disappear through a slow and bungled response, as well as withholding information and treating families poorly.Both strongly deny the charges, but a number of miscues blotted Malaysia’s chaotic reaction — including its air force’s failure to act despite tracking the plane on radar for nearly an hour after it diverted.A slew of lawsuits targeting the struggling carrier have been launched in US, Malaysian Chinese and Australia courts ahead of the two-year anniversary, a deadline for taking legal action against the airline.Aviation-law specialists say are they likely to result in payouts of possibly hundreds of millions of dollars.