Earlier this morning a South African radio station posted a story about a local family that found a piece of aircraft debris while on vacation in Mozambique in December.
18-year-old Liam Lotter has told East Coast Radio Newswatch while they were on holiday in Inhambane in December – he and his cousin came across what he describes as the “shiny object” while walking on the beach. They brought it back to KwaZulu-Natal. Lotter says it was only after seeing news reports last week about another piece of debris found on a sandbank off Mozambique that his family saw a possible link. Liam’s mother Candace Lotter has since been in contact with South African and Australian authorities.
The story included a couple of pictures:
UPDATE: On Friday, March 11 Reuters published more photos:
Here’s an image that provides a sense of scale:
The code “676EB” in the top photograph refers to an access panel hatch in the right-hand outboard flap of a 777. The images below show the equivalent structures on the left-hand side.
Given that no other 777 has gone missing at sea, and that the Réunion flaperon has been conclusively identified as coming from the missing flight, then it’s very hard to imagine that this part didn’t come MH370.
Given that after nearly two years only a single piece of debris had heretofore been found, it’s extraordinary that in the span of less than two weeks three pieces of possible MH370 debris have come to light.
First, of course, was the piece found by Blaine Alan Gibson on a Mozambique sand bar in late February:
Followed a few days later by reports that Johnny Begue, who found the flaperon later linked to MH370 in July of 2015, had found what might be another part of the plane:
One striking feature of these three latest finds, that many people have commented on, is the striking absence of barnacles, algae, or other forms of sea life. That’s in striking contrast to the flaperon:
Some have suggested that the pieces might have been grazed clean by crabs after making landfall, or scoured clean by the action of waves and sand. According to IB Times, one Mozambique official believes that Blaine’s piece probably did not come from MH370 for this reason:
Abreu was also quoted Friday by state news agency AIM, saying that any claim that the debris belonged to the missing Flight MH370 was “premature” and “speculative,” according to All Africa. He also expressed doubts that the debris may not be from the missing Boeing 777 as the object was too clean to have been in the ocean for the past two years. However, he reportedly said that “no aircraft which has overflown Mozambican airspace has reported losing a panel of this nature,” First Post reported, citing AIM.
Hopefully a thorough investigation by the authorities will clarify the issue.
Worth noting that the second Mozambique piece was found 125 miles south of the first one, while both of the Réunion pieces were found on the same beach.
@falken
Thanks for the link to the article in “The Atlantic”. It was, indeed, a great read.
Warren/Richard Cole/M Pat – I can confirm that in an uncoordinated way there were thousands of people scanning for debris here and many thousands of items got retrieved. Many many more have been collected in organized clean ups and ANYTHING looking like the Mozambique piece would have been leapt on. You couldn’t get a haircut, sit on a bus, buy a drink – without listening to people talking about MH370. They have long given up on finding it but that has not squashed interest.
So why do the locals I talk to not think it realistic that we have undiscovered debris? Firstly we are coastally obsessed. All roads lead there and the average family car is a 4WD. Many spots look a bit wild and untouched but when you get down to the waters edge you see the remains of some fishermans lunch. A common gripe among anglers is that you have to put in two days drive north to really get away these days. The less accessible looking areas around the SW corner are traversed by organized hiking/mountain biking with overnight huts placed at intervals. These tracks which include rock hopping and beach flat are busy all year. It’s an outdoors beach recreation culture. Even the Great Australian Bight has a steady presence of fishing boats, whale watching, recreational fishing, private boaters, with state govt agencies present and active continually. They are out there monitoring by sea and air and rubbish gets routinely removed. What looks uninhabited on google earth isn’t. If it’s reserve there will be a Ranger presence and they are responsible for surveying it. Down there you also have a host of research vessels in the mix. If there was one place debris would get noticed it would be here. For me it’s much easier to conclude that it went in much further north.
@Matty, thank you for these impressions from Southwest Australia. So different to the half-year long indoor culture in the North of Germany and probably other Northern countries as well. We don’t even have enough snow or cold these day for skating or cross-country skiing.
I believe you when you say that the chances that debris gets recovered and also reported are much higher at your place than at the coast of East Africa.
My criteria for associating latest debris to MH370 is fairly complex but will try to dummy down
Only confirmed piece (fortuitous flaperon), taken by authorities. News diminishes, hours, days, weeks, months passed, no information released.
Bogus debris identified as such within a week.
Blaine’s find seems to be following the fast track to oblivion so it must belong in the confirmation category.
Littlefoot – I forgot to mention also that we are now the shark attack capital of the world and no one cares. Places I surfed with a 4WD where you never saw anyone in the late eighties are now bitumized with shopping centres. And I think they learnt that if you don’t provide access you end up with a lot more vehicle degradation as people create their own. A lot these recreational tracks go for many hundreds of kms and areas reserved for wildlife are patrolled. You even see a lot of people kayaking long distances these days camping as they go, which is becoming hazardous with the big spike in Great Whites around here. Whale and Seal populations got flattened many years ago but as they recover the apex predators return. We are even starting to see Killer Whales off Perth/Busselton which was unheard of. The downside Sabine, is that a chunk of our summers are brutally hot – over 40’s are common, and you just have to trade the fishing rod for the beer can. The aluminium dinghy for little cold ones.
In short, people were a bit confused when we got no bits of plane.
@MH:
“If there is going to be different sea life growths on various debris maybe the aircraft crashed into an island with some inner lagoon leaving some parts in the lagoon while the rest of the airframe skidded off…”
It’s an interesting point you raise. I’ve thought about this very same thing and haven’t seen it majorly discussed anywhere else. What if the crash/landing/ditching occurred within a body of (more or less) enclosed water within the Indian Ocean? Or at least had an ‘endpoint’ within such a body of water? Would the majority of the debris be prevented from ‘escaping’ into the wider ocean (ie ‘ocean currents don’t apply…’)?
If the answer is yes, then, with my layman’s knowledge, I’d assume that such body of water could provide an ideal resting place for a whole host of differing objectives: from a pre-emptive shoot-down (foiled terror) to soft-ditching (recovery of sunken cargo at a later date) or even long suicide (the perfect disappearance).
There would certainly be no shortage of places within the Indian Ocean; among others, North or South Cocos, DG, but especially the Spratlys where you have numerous such ‘lagoon-esque’ or at least ‘enclosed’ places, some which appear to be man-made.
@Matty, most of your population is living at the coasts, right? Do you think the Great Whites have adapted and discovered new hunting grounds? But there must be another reason for this, since – even if the attacks increased – they feed mainly on other species. Why are they more frequently reported near your coasts than in the past? Does it have anything to do with your beach culture?
Back to mh370 and debris: I find it actually pretty remarkable that the towelette was even reported. Folks down under must’ve really been on debris alert.
I think it rather outrageous that the French appear to have taken permanent possessionof the flaperon. I know it washed up on their island but even so, it doesn’t belong to them. There might be more going on behind the scenes than we are aware of, because there was a report in the press a few months ago saying the French couldn’t understand why the Malaysian criminal investigation hadn’t been able to find anyone responsible, the inference being the French thought there was enough evidence to do just that.
The Aussie drift analysis has been laughable. I don’t believe they gave it any serious thought. They originally said that debris should come ashore in Indonesia!
When it actually came ashore on Reunion, they miraculously produced a drift model to support it.
It doesn’t give you much confidence in the ATSBs backroom boys’ technical abilities, does it.
It’s way past my bedtime, so I’m signing off for now.
So this South African teen, Liam Lotter, took this piece home on a flight?? – in the family car??
@DennisW thank You
@Greg very interesting fastener
@Shadynuk
Linked article said they put it in the back of their boat which they towed (presumably with a car or truck) back to South Africa.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/mh370-south-african-teen-finds-debris-missing-plane/story?id=37583335
Littlefoot – yes, the fact that the towelette was seized upon at all tells of the vigilance here.
We had Great Whites in the past, but nowhere near the frequency of late. This coast is a migration route for Humpbacks and Southern Right Whales, Blue whales as well regularly seen off the SW corner. A percentage will die on each run up and down and these carcasses can sustain packs of Great Whites quite well. I think there are over 20,000 Humpbacks now making the trip. The early whalers down south basically wiped the seals out for a food source. They are crawling back while some whale species are booming. Basically our playground has become more and more dangerous every year but try telling the locals. They are happy to play roulette. I just read the other day – Crews installing a shark net on popular Middleton Beach(Albany) had to stop work while a Bronze Whaler(shark) attacked a pair of Pygmy Whales right on shore. One escaped, the other had to be put down. They aren’t really drawn to humans as food, but we are often in the wrong place at the wrong time.
@Greg
falken’s post reminded me to thank you for your post. I suppose it could have been in Boeing inventory for some time, but Boeing supply chain managers have a pretty good reputation.
Anyway, nice catch.
Just imagine this, a fat controller in charge of the warehouse housing debris of a “missiled” jet wakes up early one morning to Internet lines lit up with a missive from across the Atlantic. It simply reads, ” time for another diversion” . Fat Controller, swears an expletive,smiles and walks down his galley of rubble past racks and racks of tagged stuff ranging from flaperons to wheel shafts, and broken rudders , panels and other jet knick knacks. FC pauses and pulls out a no step panel out from his treasure trove to purposely go with his earlier flaperon. Misty eyed, he caresses the piece for a moment , marks his log book and dumps the piece into his trolley. Packed in a jiffy, the piece is all ready for dispatch to some down and out low on dollars fisherman in Maputo. Of course FC, his handlers from across the Atlantic know for sure that some nosey white with tonnes of money to burn is about to embark on a beach combing jaunt to east Africa . Pronto, parcel arrives in the fishermen shanties lining the Indian Ocean…..and you guys and gals can join the dots on that one…..Back at the warehouse, FC puts up his legs sips his cuppa and smirks as he reads the latest ruckus his little game has stirred up on the Net. Somewhere in a pentagonal building far far away, an equally bemused gaggle of nattily dressed operatives smile in unison as their boss, Mr Coot , congratulates them on a job well down. Champagne corks pop as they sit back to enjoy the same Internet show. Someone whispers “barnacles, we forgot that” someone else shoots back ” aw quit moaning, there weren’t any to start it especially with stuff collected less than five days after shoot down so how on earth were we supposed to grow that!!”. And the room breaks out laughing……
Me thinks I am reading too much le Carre, Fleming and Forsyth lately.
@Sajid UK – I am thinking the Chagos Islands at the moment or what @Wazir just said.
@Matty-perth
Thank you.
*A+ for your absolutely spot on post re WA coastline
I wanted to put *GOLD as we would sometimes say here in Oz but figured it would be taken the wrong way so A+ it is…
You deserve a cold one come beer o’clock today
I’ve lived in freo (Fremantle for intl. readers) for 20yrs & have been somewhat obsessed with this mystery from day dot my family has travelled to the SW Corner for extended weekenders, holidays etc for many many years & agree 100% with your post.
“You couldn’t get a haircut, sit on a bus, buy a drink – without listening to people talking about MH370. They have long given up on finding it but that has not squashed interest.”
Matty,
Imagine you find a shoe on the beach, which is exactly same as your neighbour’s shoes. You think “There are many such shoes; why would I link it to my neighbour?” Would you report to police? Imagine later you find driving licence of your neighbour on another beach. Will your earlier assessment of the shoe change?
@Dennis
Voi-Shan today is a brand from ALCOA , which delivers to Boeing.
Maybe you can check with them?
Voi-Shan
3000 Lomita Blvd
Torrance , CA 90505
310-530-
OZ, you commented on the 10th, “The problem with aluminum honeycomb is that moisture at the bond interface sets up corrosion followed by separation from the face sheet.”
Could I ask please the source of this and whether you know how past this reaction would be in sea-water?
@RetiredF4
Will try Monday AM.
Dear Jeff and team, I am late coming to your remarkable blog.
Is there a summary list of all the theories, no matter how daft, that have been considered before?
It would be interesting to review them against one another.
Many Thanks
SH42
Matty
Surely, there can be few more terrifying ways to go than as the meal of a great white.
Slightly off the topic: In the RSA you can even go down in a cage and let them circle you. This is goading in my book, and goading/mistreating animals always ends in tears.
Once they get the taste for humans, they will come back for more. The message should be “stay out of the water”, but then who doesn’t like a paddle when it’s hot. P.s. hope I haven’t stuck my oar in out of turn, but it’s an interesting subject, you must agree
@MH @Wazir Roslan
You guys may very well be thinking along the right lines but IMHO the said fat controller may equally be Mr. Wang from Beijing than Dave from Massachusetts (gosh that’s hard to spell!).
The Spratly Islands are a curious place. Covering an area roughly the size of Maine to NY state, or a large swathe of the British Isles, or Switzerland-Austria-Czech Republic with a bit of Bavaria thrown in, the area is certainly not ‘small’ by any stretch of the imagination. It could be an archipelago-island-nation in itself.
And its full of enough unassuming nooks and crannies and mysterious hidden places to make an aircraft disappear. Some man-made, some natural, a few runways too. You can spend ages Tomnod-style, scouring the area, island to island, reef to reef – but its simply just too vast!
And if you could ‘sink’ a plane and store the cargo underwater for recovery later, I wonder what sort of cargo that could be…?
@all
One thing which strikes me with even the most basic satellite pictures (Google/Nasa/Bing) is that once you zoom in you can clearly see boats and aircrafts. I never really ‘thought’ about it before but with MH370 you just end up taking so much for granted.
In theory, a 777 floating on water or recently crashed should be clearly visible if you have the satellite imagery for the whole of the Indian Ocean on March 8th/9th 2014. There should be no ‘mystery’ about it… or am I missing something?
@Wazir
umm, what if the fat controllers warehouse has pentagonal shape too, for very good reasons?
@Sajid UK – the Sprarly islands are interesting because they are within documented least radar coverage so it could been by just flying below radar horizon in least coverage the pilot snuck away. Could be why the return back theory has weak or no true radar hits.
@falken
Could very well be! And I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. Me thinks that warehouse is also teeming with disused Boeing 777 parts culled from aircraft junkyards or flea markets, you know for appropriate moments. That’s why you have barnacled and clean as whistle stuff in equal measure hehehe
@sajid
There was a photo of floating debris sent by a passenger on another flight two days into the mishap. March 10 or thereabouts. It appeared in the local Star daily but of course it’s inaccessible now. It was shot over the waters off Terengganu in the South China Sea to be precise.
By the way, I find it hard to believe almost no one seem to wrap their heads around a pilot’s ANC credo. Imagine my plane’s been hit . ANC kicks in and when I do eventually get to C, I simply can’t because it’s been knocked out stone cold. Meaning, irrespective of scenarios, my comms are virtually out which explains exactly what happened that night over IGARI. Guess everyone knows what happened to MH17.
And interestingly 20 times prior MH 17 never flew that route on realtime flight tracking sites….but that’s another story……
Sajid UK
I hear what you say but was there total coverage of the SIO at the required resolution? and do we know if it was cloudy down there at the time? If conditions had been right, then he would have been seen floating on the water. Another question: did the pilot take this into account in his pre-flight planning? I think the answer must be yes. That’s why he made a high speed ditching, designed to make it sink rapidly in essentially one piece. Remember, he arrived in the area shortly after sunrise, he knew he would be vulnerable if he either floated a while, or if he left a mass of wreckage. And the debris retrieved so far also points to an unusual impact scenario, its uncanny that we have a damaged flaperon and part of the flap assembly, both from the RH side! It all points to a high speed, controlled ditching. The important thing now is can we convince the relevant authorities of this? If not, then we are wasting our time ruminating over the finer points of drift patterns, barnacle habits and cover-up conspiracies. The plane is far out in the ocean, and a long way down (just as he intended) No task for any future amateur expedition.
Matty, Lisa,
I gotta disagree. I feel like an outcast here. I am the only person I know (personally)that is interested in MH370. I travel this wide brown land (and blue bits a joining))extensively: 52 Nights worth last year to be exact. Not one person I interacted with was considering the linkage of debris to some unknown flight that disappeared. Maybe we catch different buses, but to me a chance find on the West Coast has a high percentage of being overlooked.
And that is in regard to the populated SW and Northern parts of the coastline. Move onto the southern shores and the Bight. Drift models suggest that any debris hitting AU shores has a higher percentage landing on the Southern/Eastern section over Northern/ Western parts.
Between Esperance and Ceduna, the coast is a desert. Relatively, very few people make the pilgrimage here. The fact that the bight is 300+ KM of 80m high cliff line is testament to that. I am one who has been to the bottom of that cliff line, but I would suggest I am one of a handful to do so. Boats avoid it like the plague, for very obvious reasons. This stretch, almost 1200Km’s worth is remote, for the most part inaccessible and rarely visited.
So I don’t see much chance of debris being recognised by the masses, unless it surfaces East of Ceduna. Even then, its a long shot. One can only hope the pieces are large enough to draw attention to their importance.
With regards,…..
Besides the piece w. honeycomb material found in the Maldives, which was put aside as ‘high tec surfboard’ , at least one other, smaller fragmant of honeycomb material was found.
http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=569861:possible-mh370-debris-found-in-maldives&Itemid=4#axzz42nYrgeHa
With the current updated state of information about Boeing parts, after the last findings, anyone who despite surfboard-claims thinks these Maldives-finds may still be related to MH370?
After thinking more about whether the part recovered by Blaine Gibson can float, I conclude that the remaining honeycomb is contributing to the buoyancy, either because some remains intact and sealed and/or the damaged honeycomb maintains sufficient porosity such that some air is entrapped. This was one of the 3 explanations that I first offered when I began asking questions about the floatability of the part.
I still question whether the part in the condition found by Blaine Gibson could have floated across the ocean. Before people respond with angry comments saying that I am undermining the credibility of the part, please note that is an observation and not an accusation.
I agree with @VictorI about if this part could have come across the ocean in the condition found.
Has anyone found an explanation for the step in the flange of Gibson’s part?
@Wasir
Incredible of you to work all that out. Reading it I had one of those “now why didn’t I think of that” moments. I think they undid it all when they forgot the barnacles. BTW, heard somewhere that Flaperon barnacles are up for sale on Ebay, some people have no consciences.
@ Sharkcaver: Thanks for the comments: I was looking at that cliff region in the Great Bight on Google Earth as well: it’s just doesn’t seem like a place where a lot of weekenders would want to go. There won’t be any debris found in Australia, until there is some debris found. Interesting that you were able to make it to the bottom of the cliffs. What were your general impressions? Was there a lot of flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shore? If so, was it typically encrusted with gooseneck barnacles?
In any case, judging by actual drift buoys provided by M Pat, Australia isn’t the most likely place since most debris would be deflected by the West Australian Current.
http://i.imgur.com/PFQTUaa.png
Here are a couple of pictures provided by M Pat a couple of articles ago:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=okna85&s=9#.VuVqHmbmpZU
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2qwomqc&s=9#.VuVqNmbmpZU
The first shows actual buoys being deflected by the West Australian Current. The second shows landing sites of actual buoys.
Just going from that, it is clear that if one wanted to find more debris, probably the best place to go and look would be that northeast coast of Madagascar. Looking on google Earth, there are 200 miles of pristine, undeveloped beaches there, with just the occasional, tiny village nestled in the jungle along the way.
From a geological perspective, if time was limited, the places to key in on would be several little “hooks” or capes that project out in an east west line that interrupt the general, steep, SSE coastline trend. As the current drifts to the south, sand and debris will tend to collect there. Here is a picture to show what I mean:
http://i.imgur.com/rMiHcND.png
You can definitely see where the beach widens up quite a bit because of sand building up there. Any floating debris will tend to wash up there as well IMO.
@ Victor: You may (or may not) be correct that the “NO STEP” piece could not have floated across the ocean /in its current condition/. However, we have no idea how long the piece was sitting on the beach, getting pounded by surf, even if no one stepped on it. We should not be surprised that its flotation ability would get degraded over time once it washed up.
@Warren: I said I question whether the part in the recovered condition could have made it across the ocean. I am not sure what you are disagreeing with, if anything.
@all
We need trusted expert input. I want to hear what Boeing has to say.
@DennisW:
Whatever Boeing has to say, the Malaysians control what and when something is published.
@Dennis W:
Honestly, from a shareholders perspective: How is it in the interests of shareholders of BA to find the 9M-MRO?
@Victor I: What I disagree with is the barely unspoken insinuation that it could not have floated for nearly two years to arrive at a Mozambique sand bar, and that it therefore was planted. Probably, that is not your own opinion, but it sort of comes across that way; and that probably explains why Mr. Gibson is refusing to communicate with you. Just sayin’… 🙂
Mr. Gibson has made no claim that his find belongs to 9M-MRO. IIRC he explained that three jet airplanes have crashed in the sea “in that part of the world”, and that MH370 “just disappeared”.
@Gysbreght
Sadly, yes, relative to the flow of information.
@Warren
Boeing
At some level you are right. You could even argue that Boeing efforts relative to MH370 are dilutive with respect to the bottom line. However, there is an over arching corporate “social responsibility” that requires Boeing to act.
Gibson find
I am struggling to understand Gibson’s behavior relative to Victor. If I had found the debris I would welcome the scrutiny of other sincere investigators, and embrace such dialog. Frankly, Gibson seems to be behaving in a manner consistent with a person hiding something. Maybe he has good reasons that I don’t comprehend.
Dennis,
“We need trusted expert input. I want to hear what Boeing has to say.”
Sadly, Boeing has clearly demonstrated that it was not in their best interest to find out what has happened. The cost of one B777 is somewhat in the range $250 to 300 mln. How much did they invest in MH370 search? Is it because Boeing was ruled by James McNerney, MBA, for 10 years, who started his career as a manager in Procter & Gamble?
Well actually, if the aircraft were found and it was proved that the crash was a result of pilot-suicide, rather than something basically, and weirdly wrong with the B777 architecture, then that would be good be good for the BA stock price. How that risk/reward ratio is viewed from Chicago is uncertain. But even if it were the latter, it would behoove them to figure out the problem, so surviving aircraft can be fixed, if there is indeed a problem…
Dear @JeffWise
Let’s say they find MH370 tomorrow, wherever it may have ended up. They find the plane mostly intact, 239 decomposing bodies onboard, the black box recordings, everything you would need to finally put the mystery to bed.
Then what? What good has any of this done us? It’s in our nature to explain the unexplainable, I just don’t think we are ever going to glean anything from this situation.
@RetiredF4
In your last post relative to the fastener what do the numbers 310-530 designate?
@Dennis, I agree with what you say about Blaine Gibson and his behavior towards Victor.
Victor asks questions which need to be asked. This piece of debris demands intense scrutiny. The case of mh370 doesn’t deserve anything less. This isn’t about undermining the trust in Blaine’s debris. This is about finding out what Blaine’s discovery can tell us about the case. And even if it was planted it would tell us something. Therefore Blaine’s discovery is very important, no matter what.And those who ask legitimate questions don’t deserve to be treated as spoil sports.
@Dennis
I’m sorry for my fault, Just follow the link.
http://torrance.cylex-usa.com/company/voi-shan-fairchild-fasteners-11046712.html
@RetF4
I kinda thought it was a partial phone number, but could not reconcile it with my search.
https://govtribe.com/vendor/alcoa-global-fasteners-inc-voi-shan-products-simi-valley-ca-dba-alcoa-fastening-systems
SharkCaver – If you go back to the towelette story, moments before this woman picks it up she says to her partner – I wonder if we will see any debris today? There was plenty of people with such a mindset. All manner of stuff was being brought in. The foot of the Bight is a lonely place, but stand there for a few days instead of minutes and you will see someone. None of that area is inaccessible. Is there undiscovered debris there? Sounds like a long shot.