A piece of debris that washed up on a South African beach could belong to the engine of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the Boeing 777 airliner that disappeared from the skies two years ago, reports the Guardian.
On Monday afternoon, South African archaeologist Neels Kruger was walking along a lagoon in Western Cape province on South Africa’s southern coast when he came across a swath of material about 2.5 ft. long and equally wide, emblazoned with what resembled the logo of Rolls Royce, the manufacturer of the aircraft’s engines.
“When I flipped it around, I didn’t know immediately what it was but just thought, ‘Oh my word!'” he said, according to the Guardian.
Following the discovery, both the South African Civil Aviation Authority and Malaysia’s Minister of Transportation Liow Tiong Lai said that the material would be examined. If the debris belongs to an aircraft, it will be delivered to Malaysian authorities.
The discovery comes almost exactly two years after MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board, and eight months after investigators confirmed that they had identified the first piece of wreckage from the plane. That flotsam — a 9-by-3-ft. flaperon — was discovered on the French island of Reunion, off Madagascar’s western coast. Other pieces of debris have been located in Mozambique and off Africa’s southeastern coast and are undergoing expert analysis in Australia.
[Guardian]
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