Malaysia says personal items suspected to belong to MH370 passengers not from missing flight

Several bags and other items found in Madagascar were confirmed not to have belonged to passengers of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. PHOTO: EPA

SERI KEMBANGAN - Malaysia's Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said on Saturday (June 25) the recent discoveries of several bags and other items found in Madagascar that were suspected to have belonged to passengers of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are not from the missing plane, The Star reported.

Datuk Seri Liow was referring to the items, which included a bag with an angry bird picture, that were reported to have been found by American lawyer Blaine Gibson.

The photos of the personal items had been released this week by campaigners for the families of those on board the flight in the hope that the items could be identified, the BBC reported. Gibson had conceded at the time that none of the items had labels that identified them as belonging to any of the passengers on the missing flight and they could have been irrelevant to the search.

Meanwhile, Mr Liow said a piece of plane debris found in Tanzania will be checked to determine if it is from the missing flight.

Mr Liow said the fragment is believed to be the biggest piece of debris linked to the aircraft retrieved from the Indian Ocean so far.

"We have to first confirm if it belongs to a Boeing 777 airplane. If yes, we will send a team to Tanzania to check further," he told reporters after opening the 9th Hui Zhou World Convention at Wisma Huazhong in Seri Kembangan, Selangor.

The flight with 227 passengers and 12 crew went missing en route to Beijing after taking off from KL International Airport in March 2014.

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