A FRAGMENT believed to be from missing flight MH370 shows part of the plane was exposed to flames, sleuth Blaine Gibson has claimed.
The fragment, which was found by three locals on the east coast of Madagascar and was passed to Gibson, appears to have been exposed to a fire or a great heat.
Showing the fragment to 7 News Perth, Gibson said: “The top layer of paint has been singed, scorched black.
“(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.”
He will now hand over the fragment to Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) investigators in Canberra.
Gibson has dedicated the past year to finding out what really happened to the missing Malaysian Airlines plane.
If the debris is proved to have come from the missing plane it will be the first piece of evidence that a fire brought down MH370 rather than being from the actions of the pilot.
Gibson has found 13 of the 27 pieces either suspected of confirmed to have come from the missing plane.
Of the 13 pieces examined by investigators, about half have been ruled as being “highly likely” to have come from the missing plane.
There have been dozens of theories surrounding the fate of the plane, with a tour guide also claiming the plane exploded before it crashed.
Up until now, the plane’s fate has been blamed on the pilot who was flying at the time.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was found to have practised crashing the plane into the Indian Ocean on a simulator just weeks before it disappeared.
Police documents showed that the pilot used an elaborate home-built flight simulator to practise the crash.
The ATSB took over the search and recovery operation of the Boeing 777 flight from Malaysian authorities last year.
There were 239 passengers and crew on board the MH370 flight when it disappeared on March 8, 2014, while it was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
