A South African man says his teenage son may have found part of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on a beach in Mozambique. The WSJ's Lee Hawkins reports.

A South African man says his teenage son may have found part of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on a beach in Mozambique. The WSJ's Lee Hawkins reports.

BLAINE Gibson’s suspected MH370 plane part should be here by now.

It should be sitting in the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) lab in Canberra and a panel of international and Boeing specialists should have a pretty good idea about its provenance.

Instead, the triangular “NO STEP” piece is languishing in a room at the Ministry of Transport in Kuala Lumpur, waiting to be joined by another object, a wing part found by South African teen Liam Lotter and thought to have come from the same Boeing 777.

Malaysian authorities have been dispatched to collect Mr Lotter’s piece but ATSB last night could not say whether it had left South Africa yet.

Last week, ATSB Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan told news.com.au that Mr Gibson’s fragment was due to leave Mozambique for Australia on March 9, with analysis expected to have begun on the Monday or Tuesday of this week.

No mention was made of a stop over in Kuala Lumpur. When the suspected fragment of B777 horizontal stabiliser landed in KL on March 10, people half-joked on social media that it would probably never make it to Australia.

Possibly the first time in history that part of an aircraft has been hijacked twice. https://t.co/ukV792jFto — Jeff Wise (@ManvBrain) March 10, 2016

US science and aviation journalist and MH370 commentator Jeff Wise tweeted sarcastically: “Possibly the first time in history that part of an aircraft has been hijacked twice.”

Now insiders are questioning whether the delay is a yet another attempt by Malaysia to undermine the investigation.

Malaysian Transport Minister Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai told local reporters that the Mozambique debris will undergo local testing before being forwarded to Australia.

“Tests and analysis will be conducted in advance on the debris found in Mozambique before it is sent to Australia for verification if it actually belonged to MH370,” he said on March 10.

“On when the results will be obtained, that I cannot confirm and I will leave it to the experts ... but we hope as soon as possible.”

MH370 Independent Group (IG) member Victor Iannello had previously expressed concern that any testing of debris before it reaches the international panel of investigators may damage the parts.

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However, last night the ATSB disputed Mr Liow’s comments, giving weight to suspicions Australian authorities have been blindsided by their Malaysian counterparts.

“We are not aware of the Malaysian authorities having carried out any tests on the debris recovered by Mr Gibson,” a spokesman told News.com.au.

“We have been advised that the debris remains securely stored in the Ministry of Transport until it is to be transported to Australia.”

The spokesman could not say when that would happen and advised any questions about the logistics of transporting the debris should be directed to Malaysian authorities.

Sources close to the investigation told News.com.au overnight that the development smacks of Malaysia “screwing the ATSB over” and “undermining the investigation”.

One specialist, who requested anonymity, said the ATSB was “probably furious” and was now redirecting all questions about debris to Malaysia in order to prevent being further embarrassment.

The two fragments are absolutely vital to the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared during an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board.

Both were found on sandbanks in Mozambique and share a number of curious features, including a notable absence of marine life on their clean, white shiny surfaces — at least to the naked eye.

Mr Gibson’s piece surfaced in the first week of this month while Mr Lotter found his metre-long fragment way back in December while holidaying in Mozambique with his family but didn’t come forward until he saw the stories about the American adventurer’s find.

Another part found on La Reunion by Johnny Begue — the same beachcomber who found the barnacle-encrusted MH370 flaperon last July — was this week declared by French experts as very unlikely to have come from the missing plane.

ARE YOU INADVERTENTLY HOARDING MH370 DEBRIS?

The flaperon remains the only debris found to date that has been confirmed to have come from the missing Boeing 777.

However, Australian, Malaysian and US officials have expressed enormous optimism about both Mr Gibson’s and Mr Lotter’s pieces. Their condition can potentially tell us a lot about how the aircraft entered the water.

Some specialists have already stated their belief that damage to pieces indicate a high-speed, out-of-control descent, resulting in disintegration on impact — and that’s just from photographs alone. Imagine how much more information could be gleaned from an actual physical examination?

Both Malaysia and Australia have said that debris washing up in Mozambique is consistent with MH370 drift models and indicates the section of southern Indian Ocean currently being combed for the missing plane is correct.

The underwater search is scheduled to end in early July. Mr Dolan has said repeatedly he is confident the aircraft will be found by them but admitted there was no “Plan B” if it wasn’t.