A message left on a board of remembrance by Kelly (last name not given), 29, the wife of a passenger aboard missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, at a vigil ahead of the one-year anniversary of its disappearance in Kuala Lumpur, March 6, 2015. Malaysia (Photo : REUTERS/Olivia Harris )
After 18 months since Malaysia Airlines MH370 has disappeared on March 8, 2014, Australia and Malaysia has not given up the search for the missing Boeing 777 jet. On Friday, officials from the two countries said they would extend the search to one more year.
The July discovery in Reunion Island in France of a flaperon, confirmed as coming from a Boeing 777 plane, would hopefully lead to the discovery where the ill-fated aircraft with 239 people on board crashed. This, in turn, would provide some closure to the relatives of the passengers and crew of the plane that left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, said Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss.
He admits feeling frustrated with the long search and zero results, but expressed confidence that the search team is now looking for the plane in the right area, reports Malaysian Digest.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said the confirmation by French authorities in Toulouse that the plane part indeed came from a Boeing 777 and that the only missing jet of that model is MH370 is a confirmation of the need to continue the search.
On Thursday, the office of Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins affirmed that the flaperon found on July 29 came from MH370. He explains that the series of numbers inside the debris matches records held by a Spanish firm that made parts of the wing part, reports CNN.
Since the search began, two ships with sonar vehicles have scoured 60,000 of the 120,000 square kilometers of the southern Indian Ocean, believed to be where the plane crashed. The search would end if the area of highest probability has been covered, Truss adds.
Lai says, "The strategic working group of Malaysia, China and Australia will get into action to intensify the search with the hope of finding more evidence as to the cause of the likely crash and eventually find the missing jetliner."
