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MH370 Investigation: Plane Seat Found Three Months Ago, Luggage Burned

By Dionne Charlet
Published on: 05:14 PST, Aug 3, 2015

As the MH370 investigation continues, a Reunion Island resident came forward with news of possibly invaluable debris that he found up to three months earlier. The Telegraph reported that Nicholas Ferrier spotted what he called “a blue plane seat” in early May. After hearing news of the investigation of the found MH370 wing and suitcase discovered on the beaches, Ferrier sought out media on Saturday and shared his story for the first time.

Ferrier said he “barely gave the blue seat a second glance.” As part of his daily patrol of the shores of Reunion Island, he picks up debris scattered throughout the black sands, rocks and boulders. The item he believed to be a plane seat was just another piece of rubbish – “a bus seat, perhaps, or a hang glider’s chair.”

“It wasn’t until Wednesday that it hit me what it could have been,” said Ferrier to the Telegraph.

Once he realized that other suspected MH370 parts were found and under investigation, he realized that he likely had his hands on a plush blue airline seat.

“It was probably part of that plane.”

Concerning for the investigation are possible MH370 items that were lost to daily clean-up efforts on the island.

“I found a couple of suitcases too, around the same time, full of things,” he added.

When questioned about what he did with the found suitcases, Ferrier remarked, “I burnt them.”

Then he pointed to a pile of ashes atop boulders strewn across the beach during his interview with the Telegraph.

http://twitter.com/TheNewOcean/status/627622399492526080/photo/1

“That’s my job. I collect rubbish, and burn it. I could have found many things that belonged to the plane, and burnt them, without realizing,” said the Reunion Island man.

Ferrier found the seat washed up on the mile-long stretch of coast which he monitors near Saint Andre, on the east of Reunion. Last week the same stretch of coast along the Indian Ocean made world news and sparked new leads into the MH370 investigation.

A wing flap washed ashore, believed by experts to be the wing of a Boeing 777, and a likely piece of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

Ferrier also saw the famous wing flaperon in May, fresh with living barnacles, but he “didn’t know what it was” and even “sat on it.”

Another local woman, known only as “Isabelle,” backed up Ferrier’s claims.

“It was the beginning of the holidays – around May 10,” Isabelle told French-language website Zinfos974.com.

“I was walking with my son, Krishna. Then from a rock on which we were standing, he saw an object and shouted: ‘Mum, that looks like the wing of a plane!'”

Though Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 is the only 777 model plane ever thought to be lost at sea, as previously reported by the Inquisitr, the findings could possibly be from other crashes. For instance, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 plane crashed off the island of Grande Comore on November 23, 1996, and another twin-engine aircraft crashed off Reunion Island in May 2006. Yemenia Flight 626 is also a remote possibility as a source for some of the wreckage, as the plane crashed into the sea off Grand Comore in June 2009, although that aircraft was an Airbus 310.

Sixteen months of searching by an Australian-led team has had searchers combing the southern Indian Ocean for the missing aircraft. All that is known without further evidence for investigation is that MH370 had somehow veered off-course from its designated route, from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The Malaysian Transportation Industry confirmed the flaperon does indeed belong to a Boeing 777 plane, as per CNN Sunday. To see if the find is connected with MH370, Malaysian and French experts will begin their analysis of the wing flap on Wednesday, along with an examination of parts of a suitcase discovered nearby.

When asked why he didn’t report the finds, Nicholas shared that he does not watch much TV nor does he listen to radio and he had never heard of MH370 or the recent investigation of washed-up debris.

“Malaysia Airlines is a bit like bin Laden,” said the French-speaking Ferrier. “No one had ever heard of it – then suddenly we talk about nothing else.”

Ferrier cited how daily debris removal, like the seat and suitcases, is just a function of his daily job.

“Even now I can’t quite understand it. For me, it was something totally normal – I see it all the time. I can’t really say if it was the first time or the last time I saw bits like that, because I never pay attention.

“From now on I will look more closely.”

As news of Ferrier’s plane seat find and other possible crash debris is spreading across Reunion Island, the investigation into MH370 continues as officials seek out more locals with possible findings of debris on the island.

[Image by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]

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