MH370: More plane debris has washed up on Reunion

Malaysia's Transport Ministry said Thursday that more plane parts have washed up on the same remote French island as a wing part that is believed -- with varying degrees of certainty -- to be from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

"The team told us they have managed to collect more debris on the island and we have handed it over to the authorities in France," Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters. "A plane window and some aluminum foil ... there are many items."

French officials on Reunion and in Paris, however, haven't reported any new plane debris. 

And an Australian agency helping coordinate the search for the missing airliner said Wednesday, the day before Malaysia announced the discovery of new items, that there was no indication so far of any more aircraft debris. 

"A great deal of additional material has been handed over to the police" on Reunion, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement. "While this is being examined, so far none of it appears to have come from an aircraft."

The Australians are in charge of the underwater search for Flight 370 in the eastern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from Reunion. Malaysia has overall responsibility for the investigation into the loss of the plane.

Although Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the wing part found last week, which is called a flaperon, is certainly from MH370, other officials have expressed more caution and say that more testing is needed.

Families of those on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have demanded an end to mixed messages in the investigation after authorities in France, the US and Australia stopped short of confirming Malaysia’s claim that a piece of plane wing found on the island of Réunion last week came from the missing jet.

On Wednesday, Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, said the flaperon that washed up on the French territory in the Indian Ocean, since transported to France for analysis, was from the doomed flight.

But his assertion has not been backed up by the other authorities involved in the investigation, and the dissonant stances have infuriated many relatives of those on board the plane, who have waited more than 500 days for concrete clues into the fates of their loved ones.

French officials on Reunion and in Paris, however, haven't reported any new plane debris.

And an Australian agency helping coordinate the search for the missing airliner said Wednesday, the day before Malaysia announced the discovery of new items, that there was no indication so far of any more aircraft debris. 

"A great deal of additional material has been handed over to the police" on Reunion, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement. "While this is being examined, so far none of it appears to have come from an aircraft."

The Australians are in charge of the underwater search for Flight 370 in the eastern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from Reunion. Malaysia has overall responsibility for the investigation into the loss of the plane.

Although Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the wing part found last week, which is called a flaperon, is certainly from MH370, other officials have expressed more caution and say that more testing is needed.

Less than an hour after the Prime Minister's statement, Paris Deputy Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak used slightly less definitive language. He said that there were "very strong presumptions" that the debris from Reunion is from MH370, but that absolute certainty was not yet possible.

Malaysian officials provided more details later Thursday of what makes them sure it was from the missing jet, including a serial number that matches technical records.

France said it would launch new air, land and sea searches from Réunion on Friday in the hope of finding more wreckage from MH370, after Malaysia said a wing part found on the island came from the ill-fated flight.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/aug/07/flight-mh370-animation-shows-possible-drift-of-debris-across-indian-ocean-video

The Boeing 777, carrying 239 people, disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing on March 8, 2014. 

Relatives Overview

China is home to more than half of the people who were on the plane, and many relatives called on the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to help them in their quest for justice.

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“I don’t believe it,” said Bao Lanfang, 63, whose son, daughter-in-law and three-year-old grandchild were on MH370. “It has been 515 [days] – that is enough time for them to have produced fake debris.”

Many of the Chinese relatives continue to cling to the hope that their loved ones might be alive. In a statement, China’s foreign ministry expressed “grief and sorrow for those on board” and sent “profound sympathy and condolences to their families”.

"It's not the end," Jacquita Gonzales, wife of crew member Patrick Gomes, told reporters. "Although they found something, you know, it's not the end. They still need to find the whole plane and our spouses as well. We still want them back.

Some families have long been skeptical and disappointed by how Malaysian officials have handled looking for and delivering news about the missing plane.

The Malaysian government has been wrong several times before. On March 17, for example, Malaysian authorities publicly confirmed the final words from the cockpit as "All right, good night."

The innocuous bit of radio banter became yet another headache for investigators when, after days of prodding from reporters and family members, they released a transcript showing the final words were actually, "Good night Malaysian three seven zero."