TZ seeks ICAO help over lost Malaysia Airlines flight 370

Minister for Works, Transport and Communication Prof Makame Mbarawa said yesterday that international experts would join local experts from the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) to investigate the debris.

Prof Mbarawa was reacting to international media reports that a new piece of debris was found on Pemba Island this week, linking it to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.

“I have reports about the spotting of the wreckage on Pemba Island. We don’t know yet what the source of the wreckage is,” the minister told The Guardian on Sunday in a telephone interview.

He said the team of TCAA experts who had been dispatched to the scene where the debris was spotted would later be joined by their colleagues from ICAO.
“This is a very sensitive issue. We need to undertake thorough investigation before moving to another step,” said Prof Mbarawa.

Yesterday the international media quoted Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai as saying that a new piece of debris found in Tanzania would be examined for a possible link to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

"This debris is quite large... only if it is confirmed to be that of Boeing 777 will we send an investigation team there to study whether it really belonged to MH370 or not," Liow said.

Investigators believe someone may have deliberately switched off the plane's transponder before diverting it thousands of miles off course over the Indian Ocean.

Australia’s Transport Minister Darren Chester aircraft wreckage potentially from missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has been found on an island off the east African coast.

Chester, who oversees the search for the Boeing 777 that vanished in 2014 with 239 people on board, said a “piece of aircraft debris” was found on Pemba Island off the coast of Tanzania.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is conducting the search on Malaysia’s behalf, is seeking further information to determine whether the debris is from flight 370, Chester said in a statement.

Several pieces of the plane have washed up over the past year on coastlines around the Indian Ocean, which is consistent with drifting models based on its having crashed in the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia.

The bureau announced on Wednesday that debris found on an Australian island earlier this month was not from flight 370.The airliner vanished on March 8, 2014, after flying off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing.

Authorities say the plane probably crashed into the Indian Ocean, but officials have not found the main wreckage despite an extensive underwater search of a vast area.

Crews are expected to complete their sweep of the 120,000-square kilometre (46,000-square mile) area by August, and there are no plans to extend the hunt beyond that.

More debris was found earlier this month washed ashore in Madagascar by a man who previously found a part of Flight 370, but the pieces have yet to be examined by investigators.