Fourth fragment of MH370 turns up in a week

KUALA LUMPUR: A fourth fragment, believed to be from missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, has turned up on a beach in the western Indian Ocean, according to a report in inquisitr.com .

“Luca Kuhn von Burgsdorff contacted the BBC on Thursday to say that he found the fragment on Macaneta Peninsula,” said a BBC report on Friday, according to the website. “The authorities have been notified. The piece must be examined by the official investigation team in Australia.”

Macaneta, a narrow strip, juts out from the Mozambique coast into the western Indian Ocean. “I think this (the fourth fragment) qualifies as a ‘debris storm’,” journalist and independent Flight MH370 expert Jeff Wise penned in his blog on Friday. “At the rate the stuff is turning up, there should be a lot more to come.”

“There hasn’t even been an organised search yet.”

He was referring to the fact that an Australian-led search team hunting for MH 370 in the southern Indian Ocean has yet to despatch anyone to the western Indian Ocean to mount a systematic search for debris.

The Australians have been reported as saying that all the MH370 debris turning up in the western Indian Ocean fits in with the drift pattern experienced in the area. In short, the debris “drifted” from where the missing airliner was believed to have gone down to a watery grave.

The total number of fragments found so far stands at nine, if all are eventually confirmed as coming from MH370.

The discovery of the fourth fragment closed a week which had earlier seen three other fragments linked to the tragic flight.

An intensive search for the missing airliner in the southern Indian Ocean off southeast Australia, identified by satellite signals as its final resting grounds, has yet to turn up any sign of the Boeing 777-200 aircraft.

The search has so far cost an estimated USD130 million, the tab being picked up mostly by Australia and Malaysia. China, which lost the most number of people aboard MH370, has made a modest contribution and provided a ship and material. It has been reluctant to provide more help unless there’s new evidence on where MH370 lies.

Two independent studies, cited by the website, place MH370 in the northern Indian Ocean.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, with 239 passengers and crew on board, went missing on 8 March 2014 on a routine flight from Kuala