Aircraft debris from Mozambique handed over to Malaysian officials

A photograph of debris thought to be from the missing Malaysian Airlines MH370 plane is seen in this handout picture taken on February 28, 2016. - Reuters

MAPUTO: The Mozambique National Civil Aviation Institute (IACM) has handed over a piece of aircraft debris to a team of Malaysian experts who hope to establish whether it came from the missing Malaysian aircraft, Flight MH370, which disappeared during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing two years ago.

The fragment contains the English words No Step, and is thought to come from a horizontal stabiliser of an aircraft tail. It was discovered by an American tourist on a sandbank on Bazaruto island, off the coast of the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane.

Flight MH370 vanished from the radar screens exactly two years ago on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.

Asked about the piece of debris last week, the IACM Chairperson, Joao de Abreu, cautioned against jumping to any conclusion that it came from MH370. He stressed the importance of establishing what kind of aircraft it was from.

According to a report in the independent daily O Pais, the three experts who received the fragment on Monday are from the Malaysian Civil Aviation Authority, Malaysia Airlines, and the body investigating the disappearance of MH370.

The experts guaranteed that, after they have reached their conclusion, they will inform the Mozambican civil aviation authority on the results of their investigations.

So far the only piece of debris from MH370 recovered is a fragment of a wing that washed up on a beach on Reunion Island in July last year. - Bernama