Barnacles found on a piece of plane debris might help solve MH370 disappearance mystery

Scientists believe that sea creatures could lead investigators to the wreck of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, whichwent missing in March 2014, becoming one of Malaysia's deadliest aviation incidents. All 239 people on board were presumed dead in the still-continuing aviation mystery.

Authorities did not find any trace of the wreck, besides thefew bits of debris that washed up on an island in the Indian Ocean.

The airliner, which was headed from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members.

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In January 2017, the official search for the missing jet was suspended and a private six-month search conducted a year later also turned up nothing.

A new study suggests that barnacles found on a piece of plane debris might hold the key to discovering what happened to MH370.

Barnacles are a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea and are related to crabs and lobsters.

Research published in AGU Advances found that MH370 might have drifted "far south" of where previous models have speculated. The study analysed barnacles found on a flaperon, which is the moving part of a wing. It is believed to be from the missing aircraft.

A year after the disappearance, the aeroplane component washed up on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean.

As the water temperature changes, the chemistry of the barnacle's shells changes every day. The location of the crustacean on any given day can then be ascertained using this information.

As quoted by media outlets, Dr Gregor Herbert, Associate Professor from the University of South Florida, said: "The [debris] was covered in barnacles and as soon as I saw that, I immediately began sending emails to the search investigators because I knew the geochemistry of their shells could provide clues to the crash location."

"Sadly, the largest and oldest barnacles have not yet been made available for research, but with this study, we've proven this method can be applied to a barnacle that colonised on the debris shortly after the crash to reconstruct a complete drift path back to the crash origin," he said.

Dr Herbert added: "No one can do any work on the larger barnacles until the French change their minds, but our publication lays a clear pathway for what needs to be done and why it should work."

Nassar Al-Qattan, a recent USF geochemistry doctoral graduate who helped analyse the geochemistry of the barnacles, said: "Knowing the tragic story behind the mystery motivated everyone involved in this project to get the data and have this work published."

What happened to MH370?

No one knows what exactly happened, and there are several conspiracy theories.

The flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia on 8 March 2014 and was flying towards its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China.

The crew last communicated with air traffic control (ATC) around 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea.

After that, the aircraft was lost from ATC radar screens, however, it was tracked by military radar for another hour. The aircraft was found deviating westwards from its planned flight path.

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