Aviation experts examining debris found on the Mozambique coast have said it is “highly likely” that they have come from missing Malaysian airliner MH370.
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The news came just hours after Australia said debris found in Mozambique “is nearly certainly” from the missing Boeing 777-200.
Soon after Gibson’s find was publicized earlier this month, a South African teenager realized a piece of debris he’d found on a beach during a family vacation in Mozambique might also be from the plane.
The Malaysian Investigation Team found that both pieces of debris, recovered on February 28, are consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft, officials said. “Malaysia is sending a team there and we are now awaiting approval from the South African authorities”, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Thursday, according to Reuters.
Australia is leading the search for MH370 in the Indian Ocean, where the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight was believed to have diverted when it disappeared on March 8, 2014 carrying 239 passengers and crew.
In a bid to glean whatever information they could, investigators from Australia, Malaysia, and Boeing spent several days scrutinizing both pieces.
He said the location where both pieces were discovered in Mozambique was consistent with the drift modelling performed by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
Meanwhile, another debris was discovered Monday on a beach near Mossel Bay, a town in a Western Cape province. The data recorder should reveal details related to the plane’s controls, including whether aircraft systems that might have helped track the plane were deliberately turned off, as some investigators believe. The search for MH370 continues.
Liow had said that a team would be dispatched to retrieve the debris in South Africa, and further examination and analysis were required to verify if the debris belonged to MH370.
Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester in a statement which was uploaded at http://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/ said the examination of the two pieces of debris had been completed.
Analysts have said that only by locating the crash site and recovering the black box will authorities be able to solve the mystery of why the plane went down.
Australia is leading the underwater search effort to find the plane in the southern Indian Ocean.
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“We are focused on completing this task and remain hopeful the aircraft will be found”, Chester said, in the statement.
