Spotlight: Malaysia hopes to find MH370 while waiting verification on new debris

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Tuesday that his country remains hopeful of finding the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, while the country is waiting for verification of two more suspected pieces of debris found last week.

"We remain committed to doing everything within our means to solving what is an agonizing mystery for the loved ones of those who were lost," Najib said in a statement.

Malaysian lawmakers observed a moment of silence as the country marks the two-year anniversary of the missing of the plane, which disappeared on March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, most of them Chinese nationals.

Najib said his country is hopeful that the plane could be found, as the joint search effort in the southern Indian Ocean, where the Boeing 777 presumably ended its journey, is yet to reveal its whereabouts after covering some 75 percent of the 120,000 square kilometer search area.

"The disappearance of MH370 was without precedent, and the search has been the most challenging in aviation history," he said.

"Amidst some of the world's most inhospitable terrain -- at depths of up to six kilometers, across underwater mountain ranges, and in the world's fastest currents -- the search team has been working tirelessly to find MH370's resting place," said Najib.

The search is expected to be completed later this year.

Last week, two more potential parts of the plane's wreckage were uncovered. The first item was located off the coast of the east African nation of Mozambique, and another metallic, plane-like structure was again picked up on a Reunion Island beach. Both are yet to be confirmed by aviation investigators.

The second piece found in Reunion Island could be from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight as it fit the drifting calculation, Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister Ab Aziz Kaprawi told reporters on Monday.

Meanwhile, the group tasked with the Australian search for MH370, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), said it was still working on a plan to transfer the Mozambique discovery to its Australian office.

"Officials from Australia, Malaysia and Mozambique are currently considering arrangements for the transfer of the debris to Australia. An estimated time of arrival is not known," JACC spokesman Scott Mashford said on Tuesday.

The only confirmed debris from the MH370 so far was a wing part called flaperon discovered in the French overseas Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

Australia's Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester said the search effort in the southern Indian Ocean, which investigators have determined as the most likely resting place for the jet, remained the best hope of giving the families closure.

"Finding the aircraft would give answers to the world, in particular the families of missing loved ones, about what happened," Chester said in a press release on Tuesday.

However, speaking on Melbourne radio on Tuesday, Australian airline captain Byron Bailey reaffirmed his belief that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) was going about the search the wrong way.

The aviation expert said the group needed to totally re-explore the "rogue pilot" theory, the idea that the flight was deliberately hijacked.

The ATSB has totally rejected that theory, instead basing its entire search on the "ghost flight" model, which proposes that the pilots became unconscious and the plane eventually lost attitude after running out of fuel.

On Tuesday, Najib said that if the Australian search yielded no results, his government would meet with Australian and Chinese officials to "determine the way forward." Endi