Mozambique officially hands over suspected flight MH370 debris to Malaysia

Mozambican authorities on Monday handed over to Malaysian experts the aircraft debris found on its coast that could be part of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which has gone missing for almost two years.

“We have officially handed over the debris to Malaysian experts this morning,” said Joao de Abreu, President of the Institute of Civil Aviation of Mozambique

The Malaysian team will leave for Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, where the piece will be moved to Canberra in Australia to be analyzed.

“It is still premature to launch searches for other potential debris,” Mr. De Abreu said.

“If it turns out that this piece belongs to the MH370 flight, then the experts will surely return to Mozambique to launch extensive research and question the people of Vilanculos near the site where the debris were was found” he added.

Last Wednesday, Blaine Gibson, an American tourist found a piece of aircraft on a sandbank off the coast of Mozambique and handed it over to the country’s aviation authorities.

Debris found in Mozambique will be sent to Australia to see if it belongs to missing MH370 https://t.co/WIS9LzUpAt pic.twitter.com/IqgWfmUS4a

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 3, 2016

The same day, the Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, said it was “highly likely that the debris found in Mozambique came from a Boeing 777,” because of the type of device that was on the flight MH370.

In July 2015, a plane wing, confirmed to be that of flight MH370 was washed ashore on the French island of Reunion.

The plane vanished on March 8 2014 shortly after take off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

The plane is suspected to have crashed into the Indian Ocean. Its disappearance remains one of the greatest mysteries in civil aviation history.