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DOI Update: Two days ago via IB Times...

Flight MH370 Search Update: Mozambique, South Africa OK Search In Their Waters After Debris Discoveries

By Julia Glum @superjulia On 04/23/16 AT 4:33 PM
A Malaysia Airlines plane is seen on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 12, 2014. Photo: Getty Images

South Africa and Mozambique gave approval this week for Malaysia to check their waters for debris possibly linked to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, also known as MH370. But transport minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai told reporters that investigators weren't immediately sending over a team, according to Bernama. 

"Both countries will assist us to find [the plane], and they will inform us if more debris have been found," he said.

Multiple pieces of would-be wreckage have turned up in the African countries in recent months. Authorities with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the hunt for the missing plane, confirmed Tuesday that two items found in Mozambique -- a segment from a flap track fairing and a part of a horizontal stabilizer panel -- were "almost certainly" from MH370. A third item, discovered last month in South Africa and potentially belonging to the missing Boeing 777's engine, was still undergoing analysis.

Liow acknowledged the "rather high probability" that the evidence was from MH370 but mentioned how difficult it would be to definitively confirm it. "This is not like [a] flaperon, which can be immediately verified upon because [a] flaperon has serial numbers," he said, referencing the only piece of confirmed debris in the case so far. "The debris that were found did not have serial numbers."

Also this week, Malaysian officials confirmed they would meet with representatives from China and Australia in June to decide the future of the search for MH370, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

More than 100,000 square kilometers of the 120,000-square-kilometer underwater search area have been scanned, according to a recent operational update from the Australian bureau. Without new, credible information "that leads to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft, Governments have agreed that there will be no further expansion of the search area," the update read.

MH370 is thought to have crashed in the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.

What a bullshit statement - LIOW: "This is not like [a] flaperon, which can be immediately verified upon because [a] flaperon has serial numbers,"

That's not how I recall it - MH370 investigation: French investigators confirm flaperon is from missing plane - even then because of the lack of information forthcoming from the French there is an element of doubt about the flaperon providence...

MTF...P2