“I welcome the technical examination report released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau confirming the debris nearly certainly originated from MH370”, Darren Chester, Australia’s transport minister, said.
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The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on Wednesday released a Technical Examination Report which has definitively said the debris found in Mozambique originated from lost Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Although the stenciling did not match that used by Boeing, it was consistent with stencils used by Malaysia Airlines on its 777s, including the missing aircraft – 9M-MRO.
The two pieces of debris, part of a wing and a piece of tail section, were found about 130 miles and eight weeks apart along the coast of Mozambique in southeast Africa. One, later identified as a segment from the right wing of the plane, was found in December 2015.
The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.
“The part had been repainted, which was consistent with Malaysia Airlines’ maintenance records for (the aircraft)”.
Investigators revealed that the stenciling of the code “676EB” and the words “NO STEP” on the debris provided nearly irrefutable evidence that the parts were from the missing Boeing 777.
After being collected and packaged by the respective civil aviation authorities, the aircraft pieces were sent to Canberra and quarantined at a Geoscience Australia facility where they were unwrapped, examined for biological material and washed prior to handover to the ATSB for analysis.
The discovery of these remnants, made by a South African holidaymaker and an American blogger, came after a flaperon from the missing plane’s wing was found on the shores of Réunion, in the Indian Ocean. The font and color of a number stenciled on the first part conforms to that developed and used by Malaysian Airlines.
“Visible marine ecology was present on both parts and these items were removed and preserved”, the report said.
Nonetheless, it says that it is nearly certain that the two parts are from the missing 777.
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Investigators said they would analyze another possible piece found on a Mauritian island in March.
