‘No evidence MH370 debris exposed to fire’

Possible debris from missing passenger jet MH370 handed over by a United States amateur investigator was not “exposed to heat or fire”, Australian authorities said on Thursday, following speculation that it was blackened by flames.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is coordinating the search 

for the Boeing 777 Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 carrying 239 passengers and crew, added that it was not yet able to link the pieces to MH370.

American Blaine Gibson brought the two recently recovered items from Madagascar to Australia to be forensically investigated by the ATSB on September 12 and told local media then that one piece appeared to show “some signs of melting...as you see when something is exposed to fire”.

But Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester said after an initial examination of the fibreglass-honeycomb composite debris that “what is known is that contrary to speculation there is no evidence the item was exposed to heat or fire”.

“With the agreement of the government of Malaysia, the ATSB examined the items but found no manufacturing identifiers such as part numbers or serial numbers that provided clues as to the items’ origins,” Chester added in a statement.