Liam Lotter picked up a piece of wreckage which could hold clues to the fate of the missing plane on the beach in Inhambane, Mozambique.
|||Durban - A number on a piece of wreckage may prove to be a crucial piece of evidence in piecing together what happened to Malaysian flight MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014 and became one of the most puzzling mysteries in aviation history.
And just two days after the second anniversary of the plane’s disappearance, the Lotter family, from Wartburg, 40km from Pietermaritzburg, have made headlines around the world after Candace Lotter contacted aviation authorities regarding a piece of debris her son, Liam (seen here with the piece of wreckage), had picked up on the beach in Inhambane, Mozambique, while the family were holidaying there in December.
Just over a week ago, blogger and investigator of the MH370 mystery, Blaine Gibson from the US, discovered a piece of suspected wreckage from the missing plane on a sandbank in the Mozambique channel.
Last night, Liam’s father, Casper, said it was only after Candace had read about Gibson’s discovery that she started to wonder if her son’s piece of holiday debris could also be connected to the mystery disappearance of the MH370.
Candace Lotter has since contacted aviation authorities in both Australia and South Africa.
“It’s only 1m long, and when Liam and his cousin brought the piece of wreckage back, we thought it could be from a plane.
“The intriguing part is that there is a number on the piece, which specifies it is from a Boeing 777, probably from under the wing,” said Casper Lotter.
He added they had been inundated with calls from the media from around the world.
“It was lucky we still had it. Liam wanted to bring it home to do some research on it.
“We had left it in the garage, but now we’ve brought it into the house. The authorities are going to collect it on Monday.”
Kabelo Ledwaba, senior communications manager for the SA Civil Aviation Authority accident and incident investigations division, confirmed they had arranged for collection of the debris, “which will then be sent to Australia, as this is the country appointed by Malaysia to identify any parts found”.
Flight MH370 went missing while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were 239 people on board when the plane simply disappeared.
A massive hunt was then mounted as the mystery deepened over what had happened to the plane.
Now, two years later, it has become a multimillion-dollar search operation which has been going on in the remote areas of the southern Indian Ocean.
It is estimated that search vessels have scoured close to 56 327km2 during the search.
Independent on Saturday
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