French military ‘refuses to give up’ on hunt for MH370

A French military force is continuing to investigate the MH370 mystery after being dissatisfied with the Malaysian report.

A mural of missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane in a back-alley in Shah Alam. Picture: AFP

A French military force is ­continuing to investigate the MH370 mystery after reportedly being dissatisfied with the Malaysian government’s inconclusive final report.

The Gendarmerie Air Transport (GTA), which answers to French judges, is seeking to verify technical data used by Australian authorities to plot the supposed journey of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 on March 8, 2014. The satellite data, from British company Inmarsat, provided some of the few clues about the plane’s final resting place, thought to be in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Four French people were among the 239 people on board MH370, which was less than an hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it veered off course and disappeared. Their presence on the flight prompted a French investigation as part of a civil case.

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, declined to comment last night on a French news report that the investigation was continuing after other countries had “given up”. The report in Le Parisien said a 449-page report by the Malaysian Office of Transport, which offered no explanation for MH370’s disappearance, was “very imprecise and ambiguous”.

“The GTA intends to verify the veracity and especially the authenticity of all the technical data transmitted notably provided by Inmarsat which has received the positions transmitted by the 777,” the report said.

The GTA was the agency responsible for examining the flaperon, found off Reunion Island in 2015, that was confirmed as having come from MH370. The wing part was never returned to Malaysia.

Last week, Mr McCormack responded to the Malaysian report, saying Australia appreciated it was not possible to draw definitive conclusions since the aircraft had not been found.