A piece of floor panelling with a serial number, almost certainly from MH370. Picture: Blaine Gibson

Five new pieces of debris almost certainly from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are unlikely to be enough to reopen the investigation.

Handed to Malaysia’s Transport Minister in Kuala Lumpur last week, the fragments collected in Madagascar in the southwest Indian Ocean include a piece of flooring from a Boeing 777. Certainty on the piece’s origin stems from a serial number matching a Boeing Material Specification.

Despite representing an important part of the puzzle, Uni­versity of Western Australia oceanographer Charitha Pattiaratchi said the debris did not shed further light on the final resting place of the Boeing 777, which went missing in March 2014.

“They were found in areas where our models predicted they would end up,” Professor Pattiaratchi told The Australian, after inspecting the debris at the request of American adventurer Blaine Gibson.

“But along with the other items found, (the debris) represents something like 0.01 per cent of the whole plane. If you tried to put the 32 pieces we’ve found into a plane, they would cover only a very small area.”

Even Mr Gibson acknowledged the bittersweet reality of the latest discoveries.

“They are small pieces of a very large puzzle,” he said. “It’s useful information but it’s not enough. It tells us something about the where, it tells us something about the what. It doesn’t tell us the who, it doesn’t tell us the why.”

As a tireless supporter of MH370 families who have mounted their own campaign to solve the near five-year mystery, Mr Gibson desperately wants Malaysia’s government to reopen the investigation, which was put on ice in the absence of “new credible evidence”.

Transport Minister Loke Siew Fook repeated that condition of resuming a search last week after taking delivery of the debris.

Hopes that private companies might step in came to fruition earlier this year when Ocean Infinity undertook a 90-day search on a “no find, no fee” basis. But at this stage it would appear the company has no intention of another search despite its recent success in locating the missing Argentine submarine ARA San Juan.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute also ruled out launching its own search, after showing interest in the first year after MH370 vanished. Director of special projects David Gallo said he was not convinced about the seventh arc hypothesis but his approaches to Malaysia and Boeing were ignored. “No emails or phone calls were returned,” he told The Australian.

And while the latest pieces may not pinpoint the plane’s whereabouts, Mr Gibson said they strongly suggested a violent end for the 777-200ER.

“The piece of flooring is just one more piece of evidence added to the others, that proves that the main cabin tragically shattered on impact,” he said.

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