MH370 investigators share doubts over washed up debris, claim initial information led search astray
Australian investigators say initial models that identified where potential debris from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was likely to show up, were incorrect.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the search for the flight’s remains, say debris drift modeling undertaken in June 2014 had mistakenly indicated that the first possible landfall of debris would be on the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, in the first weeks of July 2014.
Models run by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in November last year and updated last month found, however, that an Indonesia landfall was highly unlikely.
Flight MH370 disappeared without a trace in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board and search efforts have focused on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia.
A piece of aircraft debris that washed up on the French island of Reunion last week roughly 3,700 km (2,300 miles) from the expected crash zone was consistent with where the plane went down, based on analysis of ocean currents, winds and waves, Australian officials and independent oceanographers said last week.
The part has since been confirmed to be from a Boeing 777, the same model as the MH370.
It was suspected to have come from the plane the disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Analysis could reveal details about the plane’s final moments with 239 people on board.
Despite this find, police have expressed their doubts over another washed up object, which was claimed to be part of a plane window.
A French tourist named Bruno located the part while he was jogging along St Denis beach on Tuesday.
He believed it was a window from the missing plane MH370.
Fairfax Media reports authorities took the object to be examined, however police have already shared their doubts.
“It might resemble the back of a plane window or rather the part where the masks fall but right now I can't tell you anything,” National Police Brigadier Gisele Cadar said.
“It makes me smile a little because it might as well be from a sewing machine”.
The object looks similar to a side panel that could be found on a Sears Kenmore sewing machine.
Bruno also made another discovery, which he suspected was a plane door, on Sunday.
Malaysian authorities quickly dispelled rumours that the object was a door.
They said it was more likely to be a piece from a household ladder.
Water bottles from Malaysia and Taiwan were also found beached on the same coastline by La Reunion lawyer Philippe Creissen.
He said there had been more and more pieces of flotsam washing up on the beaches of the island.
“I walk along this beach all the time and 99 percent of the debris that's here comes from Reunion,” Mr Creissen told The Daily Telegraph.
“Recently though, there has been a lot of stuff that is not from here”.
It’s also been claimed shell fish growing on the discovered plane wing could shed light to the origin on the debris.
Australian ecologists believe the crustaceans found on the wing piece were goose or stalk barnacles.
A source told CNN if the debris was confirmed to have come from the flight, it could solve the mystery of what happened to it.
