Mozambique to talk with Malaysian team over plane debris probe

Mozambique's civil aviation authorities said they will discuss with a Malaysian team Saturday in Maputo over the investigation of the plane debris found off the coutry's coast.

Joao de Abreu, the director of Mozambique's National Civil Aviation Institute, told Xinhua on the phone Friday that his institute would like to hand over the debris to the expert team from Malaysia.

As to whether the Mozambican government would launch a search for more possible debris afterwards, Abreu said it would be considered pending the identification results.

The debris, with a honeycomb structure inside, was found by Mozambican fishermen accompanying an American tourist on a sandbank near Vilanculos town in central Mozambique.

The state news agency AIM on Friday quoted Abreu as saying any allegation that the debris came from Flight MH370 was "premature" and "speculative".

During an interview with a local TV, Abreu expressed severe doubts that the wreckage could possibly come from the missing Malaysian Boeing 777, citing that the object looked too clean to have been in the ocean for the past two years, AIM quoted.

However, he said "no aircraft which has overflown Mozambican airspace has reported losing a panel of this nature."

Currently, the institute has received two contacts who want to investigate into the piece: one from the Australia, and the other from Malaysia.

"We are open to anyone who wants to collaborate to find out what type of plane this belongs to," said Abreu.

The MH370, with 239 lives on board, most of them Chinese, disappeared on March 8, 2014, and is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

If confirmed, the object found in Mozambique would be the second piece of debris discovered from the MH370. Last year, a piece of the plane's wing was found on the shore of Reunion island in the Indian Ocean. Endit