By Tom Bowker and Kristen Gelineau
The Associated Press
MAPUTO, Mozambique — A Seattle adventurer has said that he discovered part of an aircraft on a sandbar off the coast of Mozambique and initially thought it was from a small plane, and not from a Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared two years ago with 239 people aboard.
If confirmed that the piece of tail section came from Flight MH370, a small piece of the puzzle will have been found, but it might not be enough to help solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.
In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Blaine Gibson described how a boat operator took him to a sandbar named Paluma and then called him over after seeing a piece of debris with “NO STEP” written on it.
“It was so light,” said Gibson, who has told reporters that he has spent a long time searching for evidence of missing Flight MH370.
From a Boeing 777
Photos of the debris appear to show the fixed leading edge of the right-hand tail section of a Boeing 777, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. Flight MH370 is the only known missing 777.
Gibson said the discovery happened after he decided to go “somewhere exposed to the ocean” on the last day of a trip to the Mozambican coastal town of Vilankulo.
“At first, all I found were usual beach detritus — flip flops, cigarette lighters. Then ‘Junior’ called me over,” said Gibson, using the nickname of the boat operator.
After being interviewed, Gibson went to the Maputo airport to take a flight to Malaysia to participate in second anniversary commemorations of the disappearance.
“It’s important to keep it in perspective,” Gibson said of his find.
“This is about the families of the 239 victims, who haven’t seen their relatives for two years now.”
Gibson said the piece of debris is now in the hands of civil aviation authorities in Mozambique, and that he expects it to be transferred to their Australian counterparts.
He said that he had come to Mozambique as part of a dream to see every country in the world.
“It has been my ambition since I was 7 to visit every country in the world. Malawi was number 176, Mozambique was number 177,” he said.
According to New York Magazine, Gibson has also spent much of the past year searching for traces of the missing airliner.
Gibson has traveled to the Maldives Islands to investigate reports of a plane flying low at the time of the disappearance, Reunion Island to interview a man who found another section of the plane, and met with Australian Prime Minister Warren Truss to discuss Australia’s seabed search for the plane, according to Wise.
The location of the debris matches investigators’ theories about where wreckage from the plane would have ended up, according to Australian officials.
The plane disappeared on March 8, 2014 and is believed to have crashed somewhere in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean, far off Australia’s west coast and about 3,700 miles east of Mozambique.
Authorities have long predicted that any debris from the plane that isn’t on the ocean floor would eventually be carried by currents to the east coast of Africa.
Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester said Thursday the location of the debris in Mozambique matches investigators’ drift modeling and would therefore confirm that search crews are looking in the right part of the Indian Ocean for the main underwater wreckage.
