Debris find offers new clues to MH370 mystery

Fisherman’s wife used Boeing 777 fragment as a washing board

Blaine Gibson with the finders of the debris (Blaine Gibson and Richard Godfrey/MH370 Debris Analysis)

A newly discovered piece of debris from lost flight MH370 suggests that the landing gear was down when the aircraft hit the ocean, according to experts – adding weight to the theory that the plane was crashed deliberately.

The Boeing 777 component, known as a trunnion door, was found in the possession of a Madagascan fisherman 25 days ago. It is the first piece of material evidence to suggest that one of the pilots on board the Malaysian Airlines flight intended to destroy the aircraft along with its 239 passengers and crew.

A fresh report published by Blaine Gibson, a self-described American MH370 wreckage hunter, and Richard Godfrey, a British engineer, says: “The level of damage with fractures on all sides and the extreme force of the penetration right through the debris item lead to the conclusion that the end of the flight was in a high-speed dive designed to ensure the aircraft broke up into as many pieces as possible. The crash of MH370 was anything but a soft landing on the ocean.”