Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared almost exactly two years ago, but apart from a barnacle-covered flaperon that washed up on the tiny island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean last July, no other parts — let alone the aircraft itself — have been found. But now authorities think they may have recovered another piece. A blogger who’d been following the search for MH370 apparently found an aircraft part off the coast of Mozambique, and investigators believe it belongs to a Boeing 777, the same model as the missing jet.
The investigation has included more than a few misdirects — and two unintentional discoveries of shipwrecks — but this new piece of debris was discovered in the same southern–Indian Ocean neighborhood where officials pulled ashore the flaperon last summer. Specifically, the piece washed up on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel, a body of water that separates the African state from the island of Madagascar. La Réunion is off the eastern coast of Madagascar.
According to NBC News, the debris discovered displays the words “NO STEP” and might be part of a horizontal stabilizer, which is the small winglike structure on either side of the jet’s tail. Officials who are part of the search operations haven’t confirmed anything yet, and Boeing has not commented on whether the piece belongs to a 777 or not. The fragment is now on its way to Malaysia, where investigators will try to see if they really have found one more clue.
