Sydney (VNA) – Aircraft debris found in Mozambique will be transferred to Australia to examine whether it is one piece of missing flight MH370, Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester said on March 3.
Chester confirmed in a statement that the fragment is a 1m - long mental piece, which was found in a Mozambican beach.
“The debris is to be transferred to Australia where it will be examined by officials from Australia and Malaysia, as well as international specialists,” he said.
The location where the debris was found is consistent with drift modelling commissioned by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), he said and again confirmed the search area of the missing plane in the southern Indian Ocean.
The piece was found three days ago by local fishermen along the coast of Vilanculos, Inhambane province, and delivered to the Mozambican National Civil Aviation Institute on March 2.
July last year, a fragment of MH370 was found on the island of La Reunion, France in the Indian Ocean and it was the only one discovered so far.
Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with a total of 239 passengers and crew on board.
Two years into the incident, the search operation in the southern Indian Ocean, where analysis say the aircraft ended its journey, has yielded no concrete results.
According to the Joint Agency Coordination Centre in search of MH370 (JACC) in Australia on March 2, four ships, including a Chinese one, are continuing the underwater search off the coast of Western Australia.
More than 85,000 sq. km of the seafloor in the 120,000 sq. km priority search area have been searched so far.
JACC said the thorough search of the 120,000 sq. km priority will be completed around the middle of the year.-VNA