By Georgina Mitchell
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will investigate if a piece of debris found washed up on the South Australian coast on Thursday afternoon has links to the missing Malaysian aircraft MH370.
A man who was searching the beach for driftwood discovered the debris, which appears to be from a plane, on the coast of Kangaroo Island at around 2.40pm ACST.
South Australian police collected the piece of wreckage, slightly larger than a shoebox, and will keep it until the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) picks it up to be examined.
A spokeswoman for the ATSB said the agency is waiting for further information.
Samuel Armstrong holds a piece of debris he found on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.Credit: Seven News
"We'll examine each component as it comes in. At this stage, there is nothing definitive and we'll follow our normal procedure," the spokeswoman told Reuters.
"All we know is that there is wreckage."
It is understood the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has seen a photograph of the piece of debris and believes it could be from a plane, but referred it on to investigators at the ATSB.
Footage broadcast by Seven News on Thursday night showed a fragment of white wreckage which has a black honeycomb symbol and printed words saying, "Caution no step".
The small piece of debris has a honeycomb symbol and the words "Caution no step".Credit: Seven News
The core of the debris also appears to be reinforced with a honeycomb structure, a technique commonly used in planes.
Samuel Armstrong, who found the piece of debris, told the network he just "stumbled across a piece of what I thought to be aircraft".
The piece, slightly larger than a shoebox, is reinforced with a honeycomb structure, common in aviation.Credit: Seven News
"I thought about planes that had gone down and wondered where it could have come from," Mr Armstrong said.
"I've found fruit along this coastline that's from overseas, it could've been dropped off boats, but yeah, stuff travels a long way."
Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014.Credit: AP
Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, in what has become one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.
Six Australians were on the flight: Sydney couple Gu Naijun and Li Yuan, Queenslanders Robert and Catherine Lawton, and Rodney and Mary Burrows.
New Zealand-born Paul Weeks, based in Perth, was also on board.
Associate Professor Jochen Kaempf, an oceanographer from Flinders University, said wreckage ending up in South Australia was "sort of consistent" with the drift pathways of currents in the southern Indian Ocean, where the search for MH370 is centred.
"The time scale of two years is just right, it could happen during that time scale," Professor Kaempf said.
A first piece of the Boeing 777, a wing part known as a flaperon, washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion in July 2015. Malaysia and French authorities confirmed it was from the aircraft.
Two pieces of debris discovered later in South Africa and the Mauritian island of Rodrigues were almost certainly from the jetliner, Malaysia's transport ministry said last month.
Investigators believe someone may have deliberately switched off the plane's transponder before diverting it thousands of miles off course over the Indian Ocean.
with Reuters