Investigation launched into origin of aircraft debris on beach

Objects found on a remote Queensland beach may be from a Boeing, but they’re not believed linked to a current investigation.

Objects thought to have come from an aircraft on a beach near Cape Tribulation, are being shipped to Canberra for analysis by the ATSB. Picture: Mick Elcoate

Aircraft debris discovered on a remote beach in far north Queensland last week has been retrieved by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau for further investigation.

The items were spotted by Cairns-based avionics technician Mick Elcoate during a fishing trip off Cape Tribulation on October 4.

He went in for a closer look and photographed the items in order to share with other engineers on Facebook, in the hope of determining their origins.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association compared the items to the trim tab of a Boeing 737, and questioned whether the parts could even be from another Boeing aircraft such as the 777 that operated flight MH370.

A statement from the ATSB said an initial examination of the photographs indicated the items were very unlikely to be relevant to any current or previous investigation, including the MH370 mystery.

Nevertheless, the ATSB saw fit to retrieve the main object which was about 3.2m in length and appeared to be made of carbon fibre.

A spokesman said it was currently being shipped to the ATSB’s technical facilities in Canberra for further analysis.

“On arrival in Canberra, ATSB transport safety investigators with aerospace engineering and materials analysis expertise will conduct a details examination of the item to determine its identity,” he said.

Boeing was initially contacted to help identify the object but it was not clear if the US aircraft manufacturer would play any further role in the investigation.

Aviation researcher Mick Gilbert told The Australian the object was not from a Boeing 777 but could possibly be from the 737 that crashed into water on approach to Chuuk International Airport in Micronesia, on September 28, 2018.

One person was killed in the crash that was attributed to poor weather and “human factors” by the official PNG Accident Investigation Commission report.

MH370 disappeared after flying dramatically off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Painstaking analysis of satellite communications tracked the flight’s final resting place to the southern Indian Ocean but an exhaustive, four-year search was unable to locate the aircraft.

A number of items confirmed as coming from the 777 have since washed ashore on islands in the west Indian Ocean and the African coast, in line with drift modelling.

There were 239 people on board the flight, including six Australians.

The Malaysian, Chinese and Australian governments agreed to suspend the $200m search in 2018, and indicated they would only resume based on hard evidence of the plane’s whereabouts.