Teams hunting for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 plan to examine debris found off Australia’s south coast, suggesting the wreckage of the plane that disappeared more than two years ago might be spread over almost 10,000km of ocean.
The item was found on a beach on Kangaroo Island in South Australia state, Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) spokesman Dan O’Malley said. The ATSB, which is leading the search for MH370, has received photographs of the debris and is making plans for a physical examination, O’Malley said by phone yesterday.
Australian television footage showed a piece of pale board with rough edges and an apparent honeycomb structure, shorter than a man’s arm, with the words “NO STEP” in one corner. The same words were on a segment of an MH370 tail stabilizer found on a Mozambique beach in February. The Boeing Co 777 plane vanished from radar on March 8, 2014, en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board.
If confirmed to come from the missing aircraft, the discovery would be the first part of MH370 found east of the main search zone in the southern Indian Ocean, off Australia’s western seaboard. The ATSB in April said that a piece of engine cowling and an interior cabin panel, found separately in South Africa and Mauritius, were “almost certainly” from MH370.
It is about 9,725km from the beach in South Africa where the cowling was found on Kangaroo Island, which is closer to Sydney on the eastern seaboard than Australia’s west coast.
Drift modeling published last year by Australian government scientists suggested ocean currents could have taken plane debris both east and west of the search zone, depending on the exact latitude.
From the center of the search zone, the most common drift direction is west toward Reunion Island, where the first piece of MH370 was found in July last year. South of the search zone, most trajectories head east to Australia and New Zealand, the maps showed.
A piece of possible plane debris was also found in Madagascar and Australian authorities are liaising with Malaysian officials to arrange an inspection, O’Malley said.
Wild winter weather has hampered the search of 120,000km of seabed in the Indian Ocean and the ATSB expects to finish combing through the area in August, later than a previous estimate of mid-year. Less than 15,000km remain to be scoured.
Without firm clues about the wreck’s location, the search is to then end, the ATSB said this week.
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