PM Malcolm Turnbull hopes to shed more light on search for missing MH370 flight during China visit

TONY Abbott desperately wanted to be the leader who shed more light on the missing MH370 flight. But that could be left to Malcolm Turnbull.

MALCOLM TURNBULL PRESS CONFERENCE

IT WAS a consuming Tony Abbott ambition and a bid to put himself in world headlines, but it could be Malcolm Turnbull who gets the global attention.

And that moment could come when the Prime Minister visits China later this month — almost two years exactly after Mr Abbott’s first trip to the Asian giant.

The issue is the fate of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared on March 8, 2014, after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, and only now is being found in scattered and shattered pieces.

When he was still a relatively new prime minister, Mr Abbott was keen, almost desperate, to find MH370, which had been scheduled to land in Beijing but crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

Mr Abbott particularly wanted to announce a breakthrough in the search when he visited China in April 2014, and he came as close as he dared on that trip to Beijing and Shanghai.

Around half the 239 passengers and crew who disappeared with MH370 where Chinese and the Chinese leadership wanted explanations for their deaths.

China President Xi Jinping shakes hands with then prime minister Tony Abbott during a visit to Australia in 2014. Picture: Mark Graham

In briefings to President XI Jinping and in public comments Mr Abbott said searchers were “within some kilometres” of the aircraft’s black box, which was sending out a fading signal.

The hope was raised that the black box secrets were close at hand and the disaster could soon be explained.

However, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre which was managing the search was nowhere near as enthusiastic.

“On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370,” said the head off the centre, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

So far, Mr Turnbull will not be able to announce that the black box or a reason for the crash have been found, but he will be armed with more information two years after the disaster than Mr Abbott had been a few weeks after it.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visits China later this month. Picture: Mick Tsikas

Reports today reveal the first wreckage from inside the chain of the aircraft have been found on a Mauritius beach.

A search executive believes the scraps appeared to be part of the bulkhead of an MAS Boeing 777 business class cabin, possibly from economy class or business.

The information has been passed to officials of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) who, news.com.au reported, is understood to be excited by the find.

The object, if proven to have come from the missing plane, is hugely significant because it is the first possible internal fragment to have been found.

The piece is also likely to shed more light on the manner in which the aircraft entered the water.

It is expected Mr Turnbull will discuss the search during his time in Beijing and would be able to deliver a more comprehensive and tested set of crash theories than was available to Mr Abbott.