Piece of MH370 engine cover washes up on South African shore

You don't have to be an aviation expert to know what this is. Any observant person who's sat near the wings of a jet with Rolls Royce engines will have seen the famous "RR" logo on the outside of an engine. To be specific, the picture shows part of an inlet cowling, found on Monday by Neels Kruger, a South African archaeologist walking along the shore of a lagoon near the town of Mossel Bay. That's on South Africa's southern coast, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet.

Mr Kruger told AP the piece he found is about 70 centimetres by 70 centimetres "with chunks gone from the side." He took photos and sent it to a friend who is a pilot, who in turn passed it on to other pilots, who all quickly became convinced that this was part of a jet engine. Mr Kruger then alerted the South African Civil Aviation Authority who told him to sit tight until further instruction. The Seff Africans contacted Malaysian authorities. Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai issued a statement saying that "Based on early reports, there is a possibility of the piece originating from an inlet cowling of an aircraft engine, but a further examination and analysis are needed to verify whether it belongs to Flight 370." A team is on the way to South Africa to retrieve the debris.

Time now to look once again at the map Walt marked up to accompany "Current thinking on MH370", WWW 31/7/15.

Mossel Bay isn't marked on the map, because back in July we were concentrating on the shores of Madagascar and Réunion. But you can see where Mossel Bay is, at the very left edge of the map, where the land and water meet. You can also see how the Aquinas Current could have carried debris from the northeast, through the Moçambique Channel to the south coast of South Africa.

Note that there is no current which would have carried debris westward from the area which the "experts" have been searching for the remains of MH370. If the inlet cowling found this week proves to have come from MH370, that makes three (3) pieces of the B-777 found on the shores of the southwestern part of the Indian Ocean, far from the search area. (For details on the second finding, earlier this month, see "Credible report of another piece of MH370 found far from search area", WWW 2/3/16.)

The more pieces are discovered far from where they should be (according to the authorities), the more Walt thinks that the mystery of MH370's disappearance can only be solved by full disclosure from the US military of what happened, two years and two weeks ago, somewhere around the American base on Diego Garcia. One day the truth will out!