Debris thought to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been languishing in storage for months awaiting collection by Malaysian authorities, prompting questions about the ongoing search effort.

Blaine Gibson, the US independent investigator who has previously discovered debris confirmed to be from MH370, found several further pieces on beaches in Madagascar in June that that he believed to be from the missing plane.

He told the Guardian that he notified Australian and Malaysian authorities, but the items have not been picked up by Malaysia, which oversees the retrieval and analysis of evidence in the plane’s disappearance.

Six pieces of possible aircraft debris remain with authorities in Madagascar, awaiting collection, Gibson said, three months after he discovered them. There were also “possible personal effects” of the plane’s passengers, he added.

Gibson has been investigating the plane’s disappearance for more than a year and has found several pieces of debris on beaches bordering the Indian ocean. He delivered five separate finds to analysts at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in Canberra in person on Monday.

“I brought it myself this time because I was coming [to Australia] and because the Madagascar authorities have been waiting for three months for them to pick [the other pieces] up,” Gibson told Guardian Australia in Sydney.

The ‘no step’ debris found by Blaine Gibson in Mozambique, later confirmed to be a horizontal stabiliser panel segment from the right-hand tail of MH370. Photograph: Reuters

The ATSB, which is coordinating the underwater search for the plane, said it was seeking advice from Malaysian authorities on how to proceed with the pieces.

Dato’ Sri Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the director-general of the Malaysian department of civil aviation, confirmed in a statement published in the Malay Mail this week that the authority had been notified of the debris found by Gibson in Madagascar.

He said his department was seeking help from the Malaysia high commissioner in Pretoria, South Africa, to retrieve the debris from the relevant authorities and courier it to Malaysia.

Malaysian investigators would then determine whether or not to send it to the ATSB for further analysis in Canberra.

The department also noted that it was “in constant touch with the relevant authorities … as more debris are coming on to land”.



It added: “We wish to urge all parties to allow the experts to conduct the verification processes.”

Guardian Australia’s requests for further clarification were responded to with the same statement.

Gibson was critical of the pace of the Malaysian authorities’ response, but acknowledged they had now pledged to act.

“I’ll believe that when I see that, but there is some reaction from Malaysia, there is some movement. So I don’t want to be too critical of them now if they’re fixing it.”

He had appealed to the Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak, in a post to Facebook on 5 July: “I found some pieces of your plane about a month ago. Please send your people to come pick them up and investigate … and if they don’t, let’s request ATSB and ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organisation] to please do it.”

Gibson has found several items of debris that have been linked by investigators to MH370, including a tail part that came to be known as the “No Step”, washed up in Mozambique in March.

Six pieces of debris have so far been confirmed as MH370 wreckage.

The ATSB has previously analysed several pieces and concluded that four of them were “almost certainly” from the missing plane.

In addition, on Thursday it said a wing flap found on Pemba island, off the coast of Tanzania, in June “was confirmed as originating from the aircraft registered 9M-MRO and operating as MH370”.

A flaperon found on Réunion Island off the coast of Madagascar in July last year was the first piece to be formally identified as part of the plane wreckage.