Malaysia has sought assistance from Philippine police to probe a report that an aircraft wreckage with a Malaysian flag was found on a remote island in the Philippines with possible links to MH370 plane which vanished last year with 239 people on board.
Malaysian police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said that they were seeking the assistance of Manila to validate a report lodged by a 46-year-old man on behalf of his relative, who reportedly found an aircraft wreckage while hunting for birds at Sugbay Island in Tawi Tawi.
There is no photograph to support the claim, therefore we are relying on our counterparts to check.
— Khalid Abu Bakar, Inspector-General, Malaysian Police
On Saturday, the audio visual technician told Sandakan police that a visiting relative from Sugbay Island stumbled upon an aircraft wreckage while hunting for birds in early September.
He claimed that his relatives had found human remains and a Malaysian flag in the wreckage and believed it was of the disappeared Malaysia Airlines aircraft MH370.
However, a senior Philippine National Police official at the regional headquarters for the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) said there was no report of an aircraft crashing into any island in the region.
Magindanao-based Regional Chief Directorial Staff Senior Supt Rodoleo Jocson, whose jurisdiction included the southernmost Tawi Tawi province, said he was puzzled by such claims.
Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 last year, inexplicably veering off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, most of them China nationals.
Recently a part of an aircraft door was found washed ashore in Reunion island which was identified as belonging to MH370.
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