Large barnacle-covered wreckage prompts MH370 speculation although aerospace experts say it could belong to a discarded Japanese rocket

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A piece of curved metal measuring two metres by three metres and covered in barnacles that washed ashore in the Gulf of Thailand has promoted speculation that it might belong to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, although several experts swiftly threw doubt over the claims.

Local residents reported the item to authorities in Nakhon Si Thammarat province on Saturday, a district chief told Reuters.

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“Villagers found the wreckage, measuring about two metres wide and three metres long,” Tanyapat Patthikongpan said.

Thai and international media suggested the wreckage might be part of MH370, which disappeared with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board in March 2014 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Experts online commented that the chunk of metal was not immediately identifiable as a piece of Boeing 777-200ER, the type of passenger jet that went missing.

Aerospace and Boeing reporter for The Wall Street Journal Jon Ostrower said on Twitter the wreckage appeared to be Japanese H-IIA rocket, a liquid fuelled launch system used to transport satellites and space probes.

Seven H-IIA’s have launched in the past two years and use expendable systems, meaning they are discarded into the sea after successful trips.

“That’s not a piece of any part of a 777. The cargo door latches don’t look like that,” he said.

Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) The debris in Thailand isn’t #MH370, it looks a lot like a Japanese H-IIA rocket fairing. https://t.co/gwG8MlNGo5 pic.twitter.com/ooGgIqh5XQ

The search for the Malaysia Airlines plane has been focusing on a 120,000 sq km arc of the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia, thousands of miles from the Pak Phanang district in Thailand where the wreckage was found. The area in Thailand is also not on predicted sea current routes from the search area.

District chief Patthikongpan said that the barnacles on the wreckage caused fishermen to believe it could have not been under the sea for more than a year, further casting doubt.

Investigators believe MH370 ran out of fuel and crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, sparking one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history.

In July 2015, a two-metre-long (7ft) flaperon wing part washed up on a beach on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion and was confirmed to be from the flight, marking the first concrete evidence that it crashed.

Nothing has been found since, despite more than 80,000 square kilometres of the seafloor being searched, based on satellite analysis of the jet’s likely trajectory after it diverted from its flight path.

Speculation on the cause of the plane’s disappearance has focused primarily on a possible mechanical or structural failure, a hijacking or terror plot, or rogue pilot action.

Analysts have said that only by locating the crash site and recovering the black box will authorities be able to solve the mystery of why the plane went down.