Day 510 — Oceanographer predicted debris

An oceanographer in Australia who predicted that debris from MH370 could wash up on the island of Réunion a year ago has said the part found on a beach is “most likely” to be from the missing plane.

Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi’s drew up a “drift map” last year showing how floating matter from the Boeing 777 could be carried as far as Madagascar within 18 months.

It has now been more than 16 months since the plane disappeared on 8 March last year and yesterday’s discovery believed to be a wing “flaperon”, could be the first trace of it ever found.

Prof Pattiaratchi and his team used data on global ocean currents to model how a plane entering the water at several “splash points” along MH370’s presumed flight path would break up and travel across the Indian Ocean.




“We predicted this 12 months ago,” Prof Pattiaratchi said, referring to the Réunion discovery.

“A lot of (debris) would most likely be coming up in Madagascar because it’s got a much larger surface area than Réunion.”

Prof Pattiaratchi’s map predicted that the same current that swirled around the two smaller islands would carry any debris beyond to the Madagascan coast in the following weeks.

The oceanographer was reluctant to class a suitcase found today at the same site in Réunion as another possible remnant from the plane.

The battered piece of luggage, washed up in Saint-André, has been taken for further investigation by police but Prof Pattiaratchi said most cases would be unlikely to survive such a long period in the water intact.

He does not expect much floating evidence of the plane to be found, suggesting that anything large enough to be noticeable from above would be been spotted over the last 500 days of multinational searches.

Day 509 — Suitcase found

Reports of a suitcase washing ashore at the same location as possible MH370 debris have emerged but as yet there is no confirmation the suitcase is linked to the earlier debris.

A local journalist tweeted a photograph of the latest discovery but there is no evidence that the tattered luggage is from the missing flight.

French language website linfo.re has reported that a gardener found the bag near where the debris was discovered.

This latest development comes as Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the wreckage is “very likely from a Boeing 777”.

“Initial reports suggest that the debris is very likely to be from a Boeing 777, but we need to verify whether it is from flight MH370,” Najib said in a statement on his Facebook page.

Deputy PM Warren Truss described the discovery of wreckage as a “major lead” in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

Mr Truss said a number seen on the piece of plane debris, BB670, is not a serial number but could be a maintenance number.

Day 508 — Debris found

After a long, more than a year of research, they finally found a debris in the western Indian Ocean nerar to Madagascar on Wednesday appears to be part of a Boeing 777, the same model as Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that disappeared in 2014, according to a source close to the investigation.

The source said there is a unique element to the Boeing 777's flaperon, a wing component, that Boeing observers believe they are seeing in photos.

The debris was found Wednesday off the coast of Reunion Island, a French department in the western Indian Ocean. It is being examined to determine whether it is connected to flight MH370, a member of the French air force in Reunion said Wednesday.

The debris was found off the coast of St. Andre, a community on the island, according to Adjutant Christian Retournat.





Boeing officials conducted an initial assessment of the debris using photographs. The source stressed the observations are preliminary.