BANGKOK: Four Malaysian officials, who are believed to be from the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), arrived in Nakhon Si Thammarat here today and examined the suspected aircraft wreckage found along the province’s coast yesterday.
In confirming this, Pak Phanang district police chief Thanyapat Pattikongsan said the officers arrived at about 10am (11am Malaysian time) at the site of the wreckage and left about an hour later.
“They (Malaysian officers) spent about an hour at the site, inspected the suspected wreckage and collected evidence before leaving the area. They did not provide any details of their work,” he told Bernama today.
The Malaysian officials, he said, arrived at Nakhon Si Thammarat’s airport this morning from Kuala Lumpur.
Local villagers living off the coast of this southern Thailand province yesterday reported the discovery of a large metal object measuring two metres wide and three metres long, which was suspected to originate from an aircraft.
The find off the shore of southern Thailand has prompted the country’s media to speculate that the suspected plane wreckage could be from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 that vanished during a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing two years ago.
There were 239 passengers and crew on board the doomed Boeing 777-200ER jetliner whose flight path ended in the southern Indian Ocean.
Yesterday, Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai instructed DCA director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman to contact Thai authorities on the latest suspected plane wreckage.
Meanwhile, at the Pa Thya beach in Nakhorn Si Thammarat today, the site where local fishermen discovered the wreckage on Saturday, efforts by the local media to interview the four Malaysian officials failed.
The officials also declined to divulge their identities to the local media.
Nevertheless, one of the officials confirmed that the data and evidence collected from the suspected aircraft wreckage would be sent to Kuala Lumpur for further analysis by experts.
“The data and evidence will be further analysed,” said the Malaysian official.
Also present at the site were Thai DCA officials and security personnel.
According to the Thai DCA, the suspected aircraft wreckage will be flown to Bangkok today to enable further analysis by the experts.
Its deputy director-general, Amphawan Wannako told Bernama that they would also discuss the possibility of sending pictures of the wreckage to Boeing or the United States’ National Transportation Safety Board for clarification.
“We will discuss [the matter] today,” she said.
– BERNAMA
Source by http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/
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