Beachcombing trio set on solving puzzle of lost flight
IT MIGHT seem a flight of fancy to some, but three men from two continents who found pieces of the missing Malaysian Airlines aircraft have teamed up in South Africa – determined to figure out what happened to the airliner.
Since Pretoria archaeologist and aviation enthusiast Neels Kruger discovered a fragment of the aircraft’s engine housing at Klein Brak on the Garden Route in March, the three men have been contemplating getting together to comb South African beaches for debris.
Kruger, American adventurer Blaine Gibson – who has found several confirmed pieces of the Boeing 777 in Mada- gascar and Mozambique – and KwaZulu- Natal youngster Liam Lotter, who discovered a fragment while on holiday in Mozambique, met yesterday to begin their search efforts.
They are to focus on KwaZulu-Natal beaches over the next four days.
MHFlight 370, carrying 239 passengers and crew members, disappeared after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014.
The aircraft has not been found, but the first fragment washed up on the island of Reunion in July last year.
Gibson, from Seattle, has been searching for debris since the first anniversary of the tragedy.
“I spoke to the families of the passengers and it was un- bearable that they did not have the answers they were so desperately looking for.”
After studying currents and speaking to top oceanographers, Gibson thought his search should focus on the southern Indian Ocean.
“In Durban we will be looking at beaches not sheltered by a reef and which have no strong currents running par- allel to the coast.” To the untrained eye, fragments could go unnoticed.
“We would like to spread the word about what people should be looking out for.
“The pieces are light grey or white with a honeycomb core. The best thing to do is to look at pictures of the pieces found to know what to look for.” – Garden Route Media