Flight MH370 Update: Possible Plane Debris Found In Madagascar Hints At Fire On Board

Possible plane debris found on the east coast of Madagascar hints at a fire on board the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. The debris piece will be given to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the agency leading the search for the missing plane, in Canberra on Monday.

Three locals discovered the possible plane debris and handed it over to independent searcher Blaine Gibson, who has found several debris pieces — some of which have been confirmed to be "most likely" from Flight MH370. The latest debris pieces are nonstructural and appear to be sections of an internal wall panel which has been burnt. According to reports, the pieces strongly resemble some of the paneling used in the Boeing 777 avionics bay, which is located below and behind the cockpit under the main cabin floor.

“The top layer of paint has been signed, scorched black,” Gibson told Channel 7 Perth after touching down in Australia. “(It’s significant) because it appears to be from the interior of the plane but not the main cabin, perhaps the cargo hold, perhaps the avionics bay.”

However, he cautioned that experts at the ATSB needed “to forensically examine the pieces to determine where they came from and what happened to them” before drawing any conclusion.

So far, Gibson has found 13 of the 27 pieces of suspected and confirmed MH370 debris.

The latest news comes as the search for the missing plane is wrapping up, with no concrete clues as to what may have happened to the Boeing 777 jet. The ATSB announced last month that replicas of a flaperon found last year in the French-controlled Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean will be used to determine whether it is the wind or the currents that affect how they drift.

Flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Several conspiracy theories have surfaced over the plane's disappearance, with some allegations against the plane's captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah.