France to step up air, sea search for MH370 wreckage

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished without a trace en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing last March with 239 people aboard.

Bishop said she met with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi this week to discuss the search effort.

Dominique Sorain, the top government official in Reunion, told reporters that a military transport plane was patrolling the seas off the coast and a ship had also departed before being forced to return due to bad weather. There would also be foot patrols and search operations by helicopters and maritime units, it added.

They requested anonymity, because they did not want to appear critical of the Malaysian investigation, but the contradicting statements threw more confusion over an investigation that has often seemed inconsistent, to the dismay of families of those lost. Last week, a piece of debris was found that was believed to be from a plane but turned out to be a simple house ladder.

Malaysian officials said they had handed a load of aircraft debris – including window pane, cushion and aluminum materials – to French authorities for verification on whether any of it is from MH370. “We expect and hope that there would be more objects to be found which would be able to help resolve this mystery”, it said.

“Debris such as the flaperon can only increase our understanding of the last seconds of the flight”, said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at industry publication Flightglobal.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said investigators on the French island of Reunion had collected more aircraft debris, including a plane window and aluminum foil, but there was no confirmation they also belonged to the missing plane.

Meanwhile, Mr Liow sparked further questions when he said that a maintenance seal and the colour tone of the paint on the wing part, known as a flaperon, matches the airline’s records.

Australian authorities, who have led a multinational search for the aircraft, expressed confidence that they were searching in the right area and that the body of the plane would eventually be found.

French prosecutors overseeing the analysis of the flaperon, however, say that while there are “very strong presumptions” that it’s from MH370, more tests need to be carried out to ensure absolute certainty.

“It’s not 100 per cent (sure) like the Malaysian prime minister said”.

About 50 family members staged a noisy protest near the Malaysian embassy in Beijing and scuffled briefly with police who stopped them from entering a road leading to the embassy.

Some families demanded to know why the plane went off course, flying for hours after its communications and tracking systems were shut down.

Aviation analysts say the lone piece won’t be enough of a clue for searchers to locate the missing plane.

“It is the first physical evidence and it strengthens the given pattern of the current flow in the ocean, that it is not impossible for the flaperon to float all the way to the island”, he told Bernama news agency.