The crash of the Malaysian Airline plane MH370 is one of the modern mysteries of aviation. When the aircraft disappeared; seemingly fell off the planet on 8 March 2014, there was a worldwide combing operation for the missing aircraft which proved futile. Now, more than two years after the incident, wreckage found off the coast of Tanzania has been confirmed as belonging to the doomed airliner.
A fragment that seemed to be part of an airplane was found off the coast of Tanzania. It was identified as being the inboard section of the right outboard flap of a plane.
The debris found near Pemba Island (a part of the Zanzibar Archipelago) bore identification stamps. The recovered part was stamped with what is known as the OL number that helped in identifying where aircraft parts were constructed and hence the origin of the debris.
Other debris such as the flaperon (part of the wing), a stabilizer panel and horizontal stabilizer from the tail section were also found washed ashore in the same area; on the coasts of Mozambique and Madagascar.
The plane with 239 people on board, traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, South West of Australia.
When the first bits of wreckage were found, they were a long way away from the assumed crash site.
A statement issued by Malaysian authorities has confirmed that the wreckage belongs to MH370. The debris will hopefully provide some explanations for the mysterious crash of the aircraft. Whether or not the flaps were extended would indicate whether the crash was an accident or whether there was something to suggest a deliberate act.
Over the past couple of years, the plane that went missing somewhere over the South China Sea had puzzled investigators and caught the imagination of the world. There had been various hoax reports of wreckage sightings, of the plane's pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah being found alive and more.
Apart from the various hoaxes, there were many conspiracy theories about MH370 as well: that the plane was taken out by the Russian Special Ops via a well trained hijacker, that it landed at a hidden airfield after being hijacked, that the US military shot it down, that it is in Pakistan and that aliens abducted the plane or that it was sucked into a Black Hole.
K S Narendran lost his wife Chandrika to the fatal air crash. He feels that the investigation authorities in Malaysia want to bring a quiet end to the whole incident, possibly without examining all aspects of what could have caused the crash. Not knowing what happened is torture, feel families of the survivors. As such, close may be a long way away.
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