‘Missing MH370 may have floated for a while before sinking intact’
Saint-Denis De La Reunion: Malaysian media reports suggest that the missing MH370 may have “floated for a while” on the Indian Ocean and then sunk intact.
The Daily Telegraph reported that an interview with satellite communications expert Zaaim Redha Abdul Rahman by Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama “highlights the limited damage to a flaperon found washed up on Reunion Island as supporting the idea that the Boeing 777-200ER with 239 people on board had a successful emergency landing”.
It vanished from radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport early in the morning of March 8 last year.
“The news claims come as Australia’s Transport Safety Bureau rejects claims search crews have found debris on the ocean’s floor that may have the missing plane,” the report said.
“I believe that when the aircraft went out of fuel, it glided downwards and landed on the water with a soft impact, that’s why I believe the plane is still largely intact,” the report quoted Zaaim Redha, who was involved in analysis of the missing airliners satellite-sourced flight data immediately after the incident in March last year.
“It (the flaperon) was only slightly damaged and was just encrusted with barnacles. Its appearance indicates that it was not violently torn off from the aircraft’s main body, it does seem that it got detached pretty nicely at its edges,” he is quoted.
France will conduct air and sea searches off its Indian Ocean territory of Reunion until the start of next week for debris from missing flight MH370, the island's top official said on Wednesday.
A wing part was found on July 29 on the French territory and confirmed by the Malaysian prime minister to be part of the Boeing 777, which went missing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people onboard.
Read: Malaysia confirms Boeing 777 debris
"Coordinated searches will continue until the beginning of next week," the island's top authority said in a statement adding that searches so far had yielded "no significant elements."
He said the searches would be shifted to the periphery of the initial area scoured, especially to the south.
Saint-Andre, the town of 50,000 where the wing part washed up, has had a surreal fortnight as the world's media has suddenly descended in droves.
Since Monday, there have been a total of 45 and a half hours of land searches and 15 hours of maritime and air searches. The search was launched on August 7 and had to be suspended due to bad weather before resumed.
The Maldives has joined a regional search for wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight following reports that islanders in the Indian had spotted unidentified debris.
