Another piece of debris found – this time on a remote Madagascar beach – which could be from missing flight MH370
- Debris has been washed ashore on Nosy Boraha island in Madagascar
- Earlier this week debris was found on Kangaroo Island off South Australia
- MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew onboard
- It is thought it came down midway between Madagascar and Australia
Debris which has washed up on a beach in Madagascar could be from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished more than two years ago.
Blaine Gibson, an American who has been hunting for MH370 for the past year, contacted the Australian Transport Safety Bureau to report what he had found in Madagascar.
It comes only days after a piece of debris washed up on Kangaroo Island, off the coast of southern Australia.
The missing Boeing 777 vanished more than two years ago with 239 people on board.
Blaine Gibson holds some of the debris and stands on the spot where he found it on Nosy Boraha Island, off the east coast of Madagascar
It is thought MH370, which was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, came down midway between Madagascar and Australia in the southern half of the Indian Ocean.Why it was so far off course remains a baffling mystery.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said it would carry out its own analysis on the debris before passing it on to the Malaysian authorities, who are leading the investigation into the crash. Don Thompson, a British engineer who is part of a group investigating MH370, said he thought one piece was the back of a seat and another piece could be a cover panel from a wing.
He told the BBC: ‘The seat part I am 99.9% sure on. It’s the right colour of fabric for Malaysian Airlines. It shows the seat had to have disintegrated to have come away.’
Air crews are expected to complete their sweep of a 46,000 square mile area in the southern Indian Ocean by August.
Malaysia, China and Australia are co-ordinating the search for the plane.
ATSB chief Martin Dolan said: ‘We have some way to go and our best bet is that we will complete that search late July, early August, depending on unforeseen circumstances.
‘At this point there is a diminishing level of confidence that we will find the aircraft. There will be a lot of disappointment if we don’t find it.’
Earlier this week Samuel Armstrong, while out looking for driftwood on a beach in South Australia, found a piece of wreckage he believed came from MH370.
He said: ‘I have found things that could have been dropped off boats, which have come a long way, but this time I thought about planes that have come down and thought about MH370.’
Blaine Gibson holding pieces of debris he found on Nosy Boraha island, off the coast of Madagascar. It is thought the debris may have come from MH370
Oceanographer Jochen Kaempf said the area where both pieces were found was consistent with the drift of the southern Indian Ocean.
Drift patterns could have carried some parts towards Africa while other currents could have carried wreckage towards Australia, experts suggest.
Many of the families of the 153 Chinese passengers are convinced it did not crash into the sea at all.
Conspiracy theorists maintain MH370 was hijacked by either North Korea or Russia or that it was shot down by the US after it approached the sensitive air base of Diego Garcia.
