A former naval officer has called for an investigation into a retired Australian fisherman's claim that he recovered an aircraft wing from the missing MH370.
Kit Olver, 77, claimed last month that his trawler picked up a commercial airliner wing about 55 kilometers off the southeast coast of South Australia in the Southern Ocean in September or October 2014.
The final resting place of the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight – which disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board – remains a mystery despite the most extensive search ever conducted at sea.
Peter Waring – whose expertise in seabed mapping led to his involvement in the search for MH370 – said Mr Olver's claim should prompt a new investigation and said it was 'plausible' that parts of the wreck could have been found by the fisherman.
“A whole wing is large and would have had a very different drift profile than the pieces of debris that have turned up in Africa… so it is likely,” Mr Waring told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Retired fisherman Kit Olver (pictured) claimed his deep-sea trawler picked up a commercial airline wing about 55 kilometers off the southeast coast of South Australia in September or October 2014.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 (photo) disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board
Mr Waring was part of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, formed by the Australian government with Chinese and Malaysian authorities to search for MH370.
He said Mr Olver's claim fits with theories that part of the fuselage could do that washing up in Australia, especially in Tasmania and off the coast of South Australia, where the Australian fisherman said he found the commercial plane wing.
said Mr. Olver he was fishing in his secret spot for the prized alfonsino fish when his net got snagged on something large, which it struggled to bring to the surface.
“It was a damn big wing of a big jet,” he said.
'I've been questioning myself. I've been looking for a way out of this.
“I wish I'd never seen the thing… but there it is. It was the wing of a fighter jet.”
Because he had a pilot's license, Mr. Olver was convinced the wing was larger than that of a typical private plane.
George Currie, the only other surviving member of the trawler, known as Vivienne Jane, confirmed Olver's claim.
'It was incredibly hard and uncomfortable. He stretched out the net and tore it. It was too big to be on the deck,” he said.
'As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was. It was clearly a wing, or a large portion of it, from a commercial airliner. It was white, and clearly not from a military jet or small aircraft.”
Peter Waring (pictured) – whose expertise in seabed mapping led to his involvement in the search for MH370 – said Mr Olver's claim should prompt a new investigation
Mr. Olver points to the location where he cut his fishing net after it pulled up a large airplane wing that his crew could not untangle
After struggling all day to free the object, Mr. Olver ordered his crew to cut the $20,000 net loose and let it float back to the relatively shallow depths of that part of the Southern Ocean.
Mr Olver said he was able to locate the site, which was about 55km west of the South Australian town of Robe, and shared the GPS coordinates.
He claimed he informed authorities of his find shortly after returning to port by calling the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).
A few hours later, he was contacted by an official who told him the find was likely a shipping container that had fallen from a Russian ship near Robe, he said.
But the AMSA said there were no records of his call.
Mr Olver told Daily Mail Australia last month that he had cleared his conscience. 'That is it. I have stated my position.
“Anything else I could think of would be a hunch or an assumption or my idea, and I'm not really interested.
'It was from years ago, it was on my conscience and I have now cleared it up and told my story. So whether I believe it or act on it is out of my hands.”
Mr. Waring, who was hosting a podcast about the missing plane, called The search for MH30 – deepest dive with journalist Jana Wendt, thinks it is worth investigating.
In a report published in 2017, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) discussed the debris that had washed up on Australian shores.
Chinese relatives of passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 participate in a prayer service at the Metro Park Hotel in Beijing, China, in 2014
“All reported finds have been assessed, but none have been confirmed as being from MH370,” the report said.
But both retired fisherman Mr Olver and oceans expert Mr Waring say Australian authorities should look again.
And they are far from alone. Last September, space expert Jean-Luc Marchand and pilot Patrick Blelly called for a new search, based on revelations about the fate of the flight.
Speaking to the Royal Aeronautical Society, the pair said the new search area could be explored in just ten days in an open appeal for help.
'We have done our homework. We have a proposal… the area is small and given the new possibilities it will take ten days,” Mr Marchand said.
'It can happen quickly. Until the wreckage of MH370 is found, no one knows (what happened). But this is a plausible trajectory.'
The pair called on the ATSB, the Malaysian government and exploration company Ocean Infinity to begin a new search.
Last year, Ocean Infinity revealed it was interested in restarting the search after exploring parts of the Indian Ocean on a 'no find, no fee' basis.
