By P Prem Kumar
KUALA LUMPUR
A Malaysian search team has collected additional debris from a French island in the Indian Ocean following the discovery of a wing part believed to be from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Monday that the team had collected debris in the form of an aluminum frame and broken pieces of a plane.
"As of today, we have found debris, but it is yet to be confirmed to be from MH370. We did collect some additional debris from the beach,” he told reporters after an event in capital Kuala Lumpur.
A large piece of wreckage was found July 29 on the island of Reunion east of Madagascar.
Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak said Thursday that both the location of the debris and drift analysis of MH370 provided to the Malaysian investigation team are consistent, however he advised the public to wait for actual confirmation.
Liow said Monday that “some wreckage, some sort of aluminum frame, some sort of broken pieces of material from a plane” had been found, but investigative teams still had to verify which plane they had belonged to.
"We have to hand over the debris to the authority of the island and they will hand over it to a French center for further verification," he said, adding that Malaysia had sent two teams to France to cooperate in the process.
The verification team is led by the Department of Civil Aviation’s Director General Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, while another team has been sent to Reunion, east of Madagascar.
"We got the support and clearance from the island's authorities for our team of four members to be on the ground, going around the beaches to collect additional debris if we can find any,” Liow said.
He added that if the wing part was confirmed as part of MH370 during Wednesday's verification process in France, the result would be handed over to the international investigation team.
"The flaperon just arrived in France on Saturday; they need to go through legal process and put in all the protocol in place," he added, stressing the need for the parties involved to be very careful and cautious in verifying the part.
Malaysian representatives were expected to join other teams from the United States, China, France and aircraft manufacturer Boeing to participate in the verification of the part.
Beijing-bound MH370, which vanished an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8 last year, was carrying 239 passengers and crew members, including 152 Chinese citizens.
Search and rescue operations have involved around 65 aircraft and 95 ships, as well as experts from 25 countries.
After a 10-month intensive undersea search for the vanished flight, Malaysia declared Jan. 29 that Flight MH370 was lost in an accident, with all on board killed.
Department of Civil Aviation Director-General Rahman had reiterated at the time that search operations would not be halted, but rather remain "a priority" for the countries involved, including China and Australia.
