It appears to be part of a 777 tail and, since there aren’t any other cases in which that model has crashed, investigators believe it may have come from the plane that went missing nearly two years ago, the official said.
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Australia’s transportation chief said today the location of debris found on a beach in the southeast African nation of Mozambique was consistent with drift modelling related to the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Engineers who have looked at the debris have said there is a good chance it belonged to MH370, NBC said, citing sources close to the investigation.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 disappeared on March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, killing 239 people, including six Australians.
An official in Mozambique’s foreign ministry told Reuters the fragment was being flown to the capital Maputo from Inhambane province, 800 km to the north, and would arrive on Wednesday evening.
Joint search efforts in the Southern Indian Ocean, where the flight was presumably had ended its journey, has yielded no concrete result so far.
“Based on early reports, high possibility debris found in Mozambique belongs to a B777”, Liow Tiong Lai said on his Twitter feed.
One confirmed piece of debris has been found before, on Reunion Island. Gibson did not respond to inquiries made by Reuters via his website and social media. “We’re working with officials in Mozambique and Malaysia to investigate”.
The discovery in Mozambique is unlikely at this stage to impact the underwater search for the plane, taking place thousands of miles to the east, O’Malley said.
“It’s still premature and speculative to say that this piece belongs to a Boeing or an Airbus or another plane”, he said. In the event the aircraft is found and accessible, Australia, Malaysia and the People’s Republic of China have agreed to plans for recovery activities, including securing all the evidence necessary for the accident investigation.
With the search tentatively scheduled to wrap up later this year, Flight 370 may become one of aviation’s great unsolved mysteries.
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Families of passengers accuse Malaysia Airlines and Malaysian government of allowing the plane to disappear through a bungled response, as well as withholding information. Both strongly deny the charges.
