Breaking | ‘Plane window, foil found on Reunion island’ by Malaysia team, says transport chief
Malaysia's transport minister says a Malaysian team in the French territory of Reunion Island has collected other plane debris including a window and some aluminum foil.
Malaysia's transport minister says a Malaysian team in the French territory of Reunion Island has collected other plane debris including a window and some aluminum foil.
But Liow Tiong Lai said he could not confirm they belong to Flight 370, which went missing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board. "I can only ascertain that it's plane debris."
Liow told reporters "there are many items collected" from the Indian Ocean island where a wing part was found last week, which was confirmed earlier on Thursday to be from Flight 370.
Liow said the new debris has been sent "to the French authorities for verification". "I cannot confirm that it's from MH370," he reiterated.
Liow says Malaysia has asked authorities in neighbouring areas including Mauritius and Madagascar to help comb their beaches for possible debris to widen the search.
Days earlier, reports claimed a Chinese water bottle and Indonesian cleaning product washed up onshore in Saint-Andre, the same coastal area where the broken MH370 wing flap was found. A mangled suitcase shell was also found by beachcombers, but the link to any jet or crash was not established.
Any significant finds from the island, west of where the plane was said to have crashed and where wreckage-search teams have been scouring massive sections of ocean for the past year and a half, are bound to be analysed in France by investigators with the cooperation of Malaysian and Australian officials and experts.
