MH370: Suspected Malaysia Airlines Water Bottles And 'Plane Window' Wash Up On Reunion

More MH370 Debris? Water Bottles And 'Plane Window' Wash Up On Reunion

As experts in France analyse plane debris suspected of coming from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, further potential clues are gradually being given up by the Indian Ocean.

A series of plastic water bottles and a moulding that could be from a plane window have washed up on the shores of Reunion Island.

The bottles were found by lawyer Philippe Creissen, who lives close to Bois Beach, where the flaperon was found. Two of the three bottle brands can be purchased in Malaysia while the third is sold in Taiwan.

He told the Australian Daily Telegraph: “I walk along this beach all the time and 99 per cent of the debris that’s here comes from Reunion.

“Recently though, there has been a lot of stuff that is not from here.”

Creissen’s further finds have included a medication tube with Chinese writing on it.

After submitting the evidence to police, Creissen says he has been informed a Malaysian delegation on the island is examining the bottles.

Investigators are also looking at a plastic moulding which some say might be an aircraft window.

Could this be a plastic moulding from an aircraft window?

Despite the finds, caution is being urged after earlier items suspected of being related to the doomed aircraft were later identified as a domestic ladder and an old kettle.

However further clues could come from analysis of the barnacles seen growing on the flaperon, which has been sent to Toulouse for examination.

Robin Beaman, a marine geologist at Australia's James Cook University believes gauging the age of the barnacles may indicate how long the fragment had been adrift, and whether the barnacles are unique to a certain part of the ocean.

Officials collect a piece of plane debris on the French island of Reunion

He said he suspects, however, the barnacles are likely to be of the "cosmopolitan" variety, found across many regions of the ocean.

Oceanographer Arnold Gordon, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said the amount of barnacles on the part are consistent with other debris he's seen which has been in the ocean for more than a year.

"It's been 16 months from the crash and everything fits together," he said. "So I think the probability that it's from 370 is pretty high."

Missing Malaysia Plane

Possible debris found from MH370

Gordon said the discovery will give confidence to the ocean floor searchers that they are looking in the right area. He said it's possible, but unlikely, that more debris will wash ashore on Reunion. He also hopes that searchers will look at other nearby islands for debris.

In fact, the search for Flight 370 may be literally turning full circle.

Because of the ocean's counterclockwise currents, Gordon said, any remaining debris may have already moved around the clock and be heading east.

That would take it back toward Australia and to where the search first began.

Close

What's Hot