MH370: South African Teen Finds Possible Debris From Missing Plane

Liam Lotter told ABC News he found the piece in Mozambique while on vacation.

ByABC News
March 11, 2016, 2:30 PM

— -- A South African teenager believes he found a piece of debris from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Liam Lotter, 18, told ABC News he found the piece with his cousin Calvin during a stroll on a beach between Gunjata Bay and Paindane Reed in Mozambique in December while vacationing with his family.

"My cousin loves planes, he wants to be a pilot, so he knew exactly what he was looking at," Lotter said. "I thought I needed to do some research, so I took it home. The large piece has a visible serial code and other identifying marks.

Lotter's family stuck the piece on the back of their boat and towed it back to South Africa. They say the piece was not inspected at the border, although it was simply covered with a fish net.

It was only until last week that Lotter decided to call investigators after he read reports of an American finding a similar-looking piece in Mozambique.

After unsuccessful attempts to call South African investigators, Lotter says he was able to reach the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, who said they would collect it next week to perform an analysis on the debris.

MH370, a Boeing 777, vanished on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing after losing radar contact over the South China Sea. The fate of the airliner and the 239 people on board remains a mystery more than two years later.

A fragment of debris from the plane was first discovered last July when a barnacle-encrusted flaperon washed ashore on a small French island near Madagascar. It was later sent to Toulouse for forensic analysis and confirmed to be part of MH370 by Malaysian authorities.

Officials are still investigating whether the piece of debris found in Mozambique by American Blaine Gibson late last month could be from MH370.

The last thing ever heard from MH370 was, "Good night Malaysian three-seven-zero."