France steps up MH370 island search

A man whose relative was aboard flight MH370 is surrounded by policemen near the Malaysian embassy in Beijing.

Angered by what some see as mixed messages from the Malaysian and French governments over the link of pieces of debris found on French-governed Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean to the missing aircraft, some 50 protesters attempted to enter the building by force to demand some answers. “It’s not 100 percent (sure) like the Malaysian prime minister said”.

As the ground search continues on Reunion, more debris has been found. That includes a laminated copy of the Koran, written in Jawi, an Arabic alphabet used in Brunei and Malaysia.

In Beijing yesterday, some 30 relatives tried to break through a police barricade that sealed off the road leading to the embassy. Any such recommendations would come from an advisory group composed of experts from Australia, Malaysia, China, and other countries, he said.

Malaysia’s transport minister said Thursday that more debris had been found by his team on the ground at Reunion Island, including an airplane window and some aluminium foil.

“The more likely case – that it landed a bit less hard than that – there’s going to be large pieces of the airframe intact so they are easier to detect with the techniques we’re using”, he said.

Meanwhile, in the presence of French, Malaysian, Chinese and American representatives, experts from the French military laboratory in the city of Toulouse have been examining the flaperon that was found last Wednesday, and are treating it as a part of the missing Boeing 777 flight. “We can tell what belongs to our loved ones”, she noted. “Since the French are the investigating team here, they do not want to take our word for it and they want to do more tests – that is fine with us”, said an official in Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the difference of opinion. “We are accustomed to criticism from day one, but please give us credit because we are doing our best to cope with this”.

On March 8 last year, the Boeing 777 travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished from radar.

Authorities have mainly focused their search in the Indian Ocean near Australia. “I can only ascertain that it’s plane debris”.

Investigators believe that the aircraft’s transponder was deliberately switched off, before being diverted thousands of miles off course, and deliberately crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Workers for an association responsible for maintaining paths to Jamaica Beach from being overgrown by shrubs, search the beach for possible additional airplane debris near the shore where an airplane wing part was washed up, on the beach of Saint-Andre, Reunion Island, Thursday, August 6, 2015.

Since the discovery of the two-metre-long flaperon last week, people on the island have come forward with other objects they think may look like plane parts.