Initial models of where potential
debris from a missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet might first wash
up had incorrectly identified Indonesia as the most likely location, the
Australian body leading the search said on Wednesday.
Debris that has washed onto the Jamaique beach in Saint-Denis is seen on the shoreline of French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, August 3, 2015.
Flight MH370 disappeared without a trace
in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board and search efforts
have focused on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean off Western
Australia.
A piece of aircraft debris that washed
up on the French island of Reunion last week roughly 3,700 km (2,300
miles) from the expected crash zone was consistent with where the plane
went down, based on analysis of ocean currents, winds and waves,
Australian officials and independent oceanographers said last week.
But the Australian Transport Safety
Bureau, which is leading the search, said initial debris drift modelling
undertaken in June 2014 had mistakenly indicated that the first
possible landfall of debris would be on the west coast of Sumatra,
Indonesia, in the first weeks of July 2014.
Models run by Australia's Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in November last year
and updated last month found, however, that an Indonesia landfall was
highly unlikely.
The mistake did not affect the extensive
international surface search for the missing plane off the west coast
of Australia, ATSB said. That search was called off in April, more than a
month after the plane went down.
"While this error in that model had no
impact on the way the surface search was conducted, it was important in
order to understand over the course of time where debris might wash up
and help verify or discount the various items found on beaches,
particularly on the west coast of Australia," the ATSB said in a
statement on Wednesday.
Australia has sent an expert to
Toulouse, France, to examine the debris - a wing surface known as a
flaperon - on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said in a
statement.
"Work is being undertaken by the
Malaysian and French authorities to establish whether the flaperon
originated from MH370," Truss said.
"Malaysian and French officials may be
in a position to make a formal statement about the origin of the
flaperon later this week."
Source: Reuters