An oceanographer in Australia who predicted that debris from MH370 could wash up on the island of Réunion a year ago has said the part found on a beach is “most likely” to be from the missing plane.
Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi’s drew up a “drift map” last year showing how floating matter from the Boeing 777 could be carried as far as Madagascar within 18 months.
It has now been more than 16 months since the plane disappeared on 8 March last year and yesterday’s discovery, believed to be a wing “flaperon”, could be the first trace of it ever found.
Oceanographers at the University of Western Australia drew up this map of where MH370 debris could have drifted
Speaking to The Independent from the University of Western Australia, Prof Pattiaratchi said he believes it is “most likely” to be from MH370.
He and his team used data on global ocean currents to model how a plane entering the water at several “splash points” along MH370’s presumed flight path would break up and travel across the Indian Ocean.
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“We predicted this 12 months ago,” Prof Pattiaratchi said, referring to the Réunion discovery.
“A lot of (debris) would most likely be coming up in Madagascar because it’s got a much larger surface area than Réunion.”
Oceanographers at the University of Western Australia drew up this map of where debris could drift from the island of Reunion on to Madagascar
The French island, neighbouring Mauritius, is 420 miles away from Madagascar and just a fraction of the size.
Prof Pattiaratchi’s map predicted that the same current that swirled around the two smaller islands would carry any debris beyond to the Madagascan coast in the following weeks.
The oceanographer was reluctant to class a suitcase found today at the same site in Réunion as another possible remnant from the plane.
The battered piece of luggage, washed up in Saint-André, has been taken for further investigation by police but Prof Pattiaratchi said most cases would be unlikely to survive such a long period in the water intact.
He does not expect much floating evidence of the plane to be found, suggesting that anything large enough to be noticeable from above would be been spotted over the last 500 days of multinational searches.
MH370's last radar contact placed the aircraft over the Andaman Sea about 230 miles north-west of the Malaysian city of Penang.
Reunion is about 3,500 miles south-west of Penang and about 2,600 miles away from the current search area, meaning any debris would have drifted at least seven miles a day to reach the island. The search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane
Drift models originally released by the Australian government last year had suggested that remnants would come ashore in West Sumatra, Indonesia, after four months.
That date has long passed and Prof Pattiaratchi’s other modelled route along the Australian coast would have seen evidence emerge by September last year.
The Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, said it was “too early to speculate” whether the debris is from MH370 but that it was “very likely” to be from a Boeing 777 – the same model of aircraft.
He said it will be shipped by French authorities to Toulouse as Malaysian teams head to join investigators there and in Réunion.
