Fishermen in the eastern Philippines have pulled up aircraft debris from the seas off Eastern Samar.
But with no recent reported losses of aircraft in the vicinity and no aircraft registered as missing in the area in more than a month, the origin of the debris is raising questions.
The debris was pulled in off the towns of Mercedes and Guiuan according to the nation’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAAP), near Anuron Beach late last week, CAAP spokesman Eric Apolonio said, reportedly quoting reports from the local CAAP offices in Tacloban and Guiuan.
Whilst a cordon was initially put in place by the local police and officers of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, just three kilometers away in Barangay Taytay, Guiuan more wreckage was discovered, and was also thought to be part of a downed aircraft.
No further assessment has yet been made although the area is known to be on a route used by drug smugglers, with thoughts immediately turning to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which famously disappeared in March, 2014 while en-route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in China.
No confirmed final resting place of flight MH370 has ever been found although it is presumed the plane went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and wreckage has been discovered as far away as Africa.
