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Metallic debris was found on a beach in Saint-Denis on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, close to where a wing part believed to belong to missing flight MH370 washed up last week. Photo: AFP

Malaysia seeks help to find more MH370 debris amid speculation over scraps found on Reunion

Malaysian officials said on Sunday they would seek help from territories near the island where a suspected piece of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was discovered to try to find more plane debris.

AP

Malaysian officials said on Sunday they would seek help from territories near the island where a suspected piece of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was discovered to try to find more plane debris.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said the Department of Civil Aviation was reaching out to authorities in territories near Reunion to allow experts "to conduct more substantive analysis should there be more debris coming on to land".

A wing flap suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was found on Wednesday on the French island of Reunion in the western Indian Ocean. It arrived on Saturday at a French testing facility, where it will be analysed by experts. "I urge all parties to allow this crucial investigation process to take its course. I reiterate this is for the sake of the next of kin of the loved ones of MH370 who would be anxiously awaiting news and have suffered much over this time," Liow said.

Read more: MH370: What the wing fragment from Reunion could tell experts about plane’s crash

Liow said representatives from Malaysia, the US, China, France and Boeing would take part in the flaperon inspection.

Malaysia's transport ministry confirmed the wing part had been identified as being from a 777, saying it had been verified by French authorities together with Boeing, the US National Transportation Safety Board and a Malaysian team. Flight MH370 is the only missing 777 and many are convinced the flap comes from the ill-fated jet.

Experts will try to establish whether the part comes from Flight MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. About two-thirds of those aboard the flight were Chinese.

The experts are expected to start their inquiry on Wednesday. On Monday, an investigating judge will meet with Malaysian authorities and representatives of the French aviation investigative agency, known as the BEA.

A new piece of debris, meanwhile, found on Reunion turned out to be a "domestic ladder", and did not belong to a plane, Malaysian Director General of Civil Aviation Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said amid media reports that a new plane part was found.

"I'm the one leading the investigation in France for the analysis of the [wing flap] piece brought back. I read all over media it [the new debris] was part of a door," he said from France.

"But I checked with the Civil Aviation Authority, and people on the ground in Reunion, and it was just a domestic ladder."

Watch: As possible pieces of MH370 wing arrive at a lab in France, churchgoers pray for flight's victims on Reunion Island

Island police had also collected a mangled piece of metal inscribed with two Chinese characters and attached to what appears to be a leather-covered handle, prompting speculation among Chinese internet users that it might be a kettle.

However, a source close to the investigation in Paris said "no object or debris likely to come from a plane" had been discovered.

Jean-Yves Sambimanan, spokesman for the town of Saint-Andre where the wing debris was found, said the discovery of the flaperon had made people "more vigilant".

"They are going to think any metallic object they find on the beach is from flight MH370, but there are objects all along the coast, the ocean continually throws them up," he said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Malaysia seeks help over MH370 debris
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