MH370: Five pieces of debris handed over to Malaysia
PUTRAJAYA: Five pieces of debris, believed to be from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 were handed over to the Malaysian government yesterday.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke received the debris found at three locations in Madagascar between December 2016 to August this year.
Flight MH370, carrying 239 people onboard, disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 and became one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
At a simple handing over ceremony held at the Transport Ministry here, Loke said the the new pieces of debris, including what appeared to look like an aircraft floor panel, would be handed to the MH370 Safety Investigation Team for immediate verification.
“As I mentioned in Parliament yesterday, we have never closed down any possibilities. If there are credible leads, after discussions and our authorities think that there are credible leads, we are prepared to reopen (the search for the missing jetliner),”he told reporters.
“We must have credible leads before we decide. Any search mission, I have to go back to the Cabinet, I cannot decide by my own,” he added.
Meanwhile, independent investigator Blaine Alan Gibson who brought the five debris to some of the next-of-kin of the victims in Malaysia, said the pieces were found by fishermen and locals in Madagascar.
He said one of the pieces was believed to be the floor panel of a Boeing 777, which was found last year near Sandravinany in southern Madagascar.
Gibson said he had also consulted independent experts who said the piece was likely to be the floor panel of a Boeing 777.
“If the authorities could officially verify the piece, then it is a significant find as it indicates the floor of the plane had shattered. This indicates there is no intact fuselage,” he said.
Meanwhile, Grace Nathan, daughter of passenger Anne Daisy, who was present, urged the government not to close down any chance to search MH370.
“The debris continue to wash up on shore. This means we should not stop looking for the plane. Why should we turn a blind eye towards evidence that washes up ashore. There are companies who are willing to searching (for MH370) on ‘no cure, no fee’ basis.
“I think we should be more open to allowing them to do the search,” she said.
It was reported that 27 pieces of aircraft debris have been collected from various places around the world but only three wing fragments that washed up along the Indian Ocean coast have been confirmed to be from MH370.
The deep-sea search mission carried out for almost three years to locate the missing Boeing 777 in the Indian Ocean, covered 120,000 sq km, involving Australia, China and Malaysia, ended fruitless.
On May 29, United States-based exploration company Ocean Infinity, which conducted the last search for MH370 in the Indian Ocean, ended it after failing to find any debris.
In July, the MH370 Safety Investigation Team in its 449page report concluded that they are unable to determine the real cause of the disappearance of the ill-fated flight but did not rule out the possibility that ‘unlawful interference’ by a third party had caused the incident. - Bernama