Debris that washed ashore in Mozambique that may be from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 turned up in a spot that matches investigators’ theories about where wreckage from the plane would have ended up, Australian officials said Thursday.
Photos of the debris discovered over the weekend appear to show the fixed leading edge of the right-hand tail section of a Boeing 777, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. Flight 370, which disappeared two years ago with 239 people aboard, is the only known missing 777.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is running the search for the plane in remote waters off Australia’s west coast, said the part was expected to be transported to Australia for examination.
Malaysian representatives from the nation’s Civil Aviation department and Malaysia Airlines were heading to Mozambique to discuss the find, Liow said.
From the pictures shown, it’s high probability that the plane debris is from Boeing 777,” Liow told reporters.
He did not know how long it would be before the part was sent to Australia. Meanwhile, authorities in Mozambique were combing the area where it was found to search for other potential debris, Liow said.
Australian officials have seen photographs of the part and have been in communication with Blaine Gibson, the American man who found it, said Dan O’Malley, a spokesman for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
“We’re aware of these reports that debris has been found in Mozambique,” O’Malley said. “We’re working with officials in Mozambique and Malaysia to investigate.”
Australia will work with Malaysian investigators to examine the object once it arrives in Australia, he said. The ATSB hasn’t made any determinations yet about the potential origins of the debris.
“We have to wait until we have the actual debris examined,” O’Malley said. “We’re not going to draw conclusions from the photos.”
Some have expressed skepticism that the part could be from the missing aircraft because it appears to be remarkably clean and free of sea life — unlike the barnacle-encrusted wing part that washed ashore on the French island of Reunion last year. That part, known as a flaperon, remains the only confirmed trace of Flight 370.
But Charitha Pattiaratchi, Sri Lanka-born oceanographer with the University of Western Australia, said if the part was discovered on a sandbank as reported, the motion of the waves pushing it against the abrasive sand may have shaved any sea life off it.
“If somebody actually found it in the middle of the ocean while they were sailing and picked it up, I would say, ‘Well, that should have some barnacles,’” he said. “But if it’s been on a beach, it’s basically been sandblasted.”
Also, the part appears to be very flat and barnacles need something to grip, he said.
Last year, Pattiaratchi met with Gibson, a Seattle man who has been combing beaches around the region for debris from the missing plane.
Pattiaratchi has used computer modeling to predict where floating debris from Flight 370 might end up and Gibson wanted to get Pattiaratchi’s opinion on where to look. Pattiaratchi’s models showed it would likely end up around Madagascar or Reunion Island, and possibly in the Mozambique Channel. And that’s apparently where Gibson went, Pattiaratchi said.
(Source- ABC News)
-Agencies
