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Families of missing MH370 passengers sue airline as deadline nears
Reuters
March 4, 2016, 9:05 pm
Lawyer Sangeet Deo (R) speaks to members of the media, accompanied by relatives of passengers Tan Ah Meng, his wife Chuang Hsiu Ling, and son Tan Wei Chew, who were aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, during a hearing for the compensation suit brought against the Malaysian government and Malaysia Airlines over claims of negligence and breach of trust, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, March 4, 2016. REUTERS/Olivia Harris
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The families of 12 passengers aboard missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 filed suits against the airline on Friday before a two-year deadline for legal action expires.
MH370 disappeared en route to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 passengers and crew on board.
Multiple suits have been filed in the United States, Australian, Chinese and Malaysian courts in the past few weeks and more are expected as the deadline approaches on Tuesday.
Family members of two Ukrainian passengers filed suits in the Malaysian High Court against Malaysia Airlines (MAS). The families of a Russian, a Chinese and eight Malaysian passengers are suing the Malaysian government, the airline, the Civil Aviation Department director-general and the Malaysian air force.
Sangeet Kaur Deo, a lawyer for the Russian, Chinese and Malaysian families, said they were seeking unspecified damages for negligence, breach of contract and breach of statutory duty. She said even though the plane had not been found, the passengers and crew were presumed to be dead.
"I think a lot of families were trying to negotiate settlements but nothing reasonable has been forthcoming from MAS. And for that reason, to secure their legal rights, they've all decided to file before Tuesday," Sangeet Kaur told reporters after the hearing.
A wing part recovered from Reunion island off Madagascar last year is the only debris from MH370 that has been found, but it offers little clues over what actually happened to the plane.
This week, a piece of debris found off the southeast African coast was sent to Australia for testing.
The High Court on Friday also heard a bid by the Malaysian government and Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) to strike out a suit filed by two teenage children of two passengers.
In their application, the government and MAB argued that it has no liability in relation to MH370 as it was set up eight months after the plane disappeared.
MAS transferred all its assets and operations to MAB last year as part of a restructuring exercise. Families now fear that they will not be able to receive any damages or compensation from MAS.
Apart from Malaysian government bodies, MAS and MAB, the family suits have also named Malaysia Airlines’ insurance provider, Allianz, and Boeing , the aircraft's manufacturer, as potential defendants.
(This refiled version of the story changes typographical error in para five to read "She said")
(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Kristen Gelineau, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Friday, March 04, 2016 11:42 AM EST | Updated: Friday, March 04, 2016 11:49 AM EST
In this Tuesday, April 1, 2014, file photo, an observer on a Japan Coast Guard Gulfstream aircraft takes photos out of a window while searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean, near Australia. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, Pool)
SYDNEY, Australia -- As the two-year anniversary of the disappearance of Flight 370 approaches, the situation would seem decidedly grim. The underwater hunt of a punishing patch of ocean that has trudged along since late 2014 has thus far come up empty, the stretch of water left to search is narrowing and skepticism of whether crews are looking in the right place continues to grow.
Still, the man overseeing one of the most complex searches ever conducted seems remarkably unfazed.
"Our best estimate back then was it would take up to two years," says Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading up the hunt in the desolate waters of the Indian Ocean 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) off Australia's west coast. "We were hoping we'd do it more quickly than that. But we knew this was potentially a long game and we planned for the long game."
The ending to that game is now in sight. By late June, crews are expected to finish scouring the entire 120,000-square-kilometre (46,000-square mile) search zone. If they haven't found the Boeing 777 by then, there are no plans to expand the search area. And so the hunt will end -- plane or no plane.
With that finality nearing, the ATSB has come under increasing scrutiny over the methods used to determine the search area. Dolan says crews still have a big chunk of ocean to scour -- around 30,000 square kilometres (11,500 square miles) -- and he remains relatively confident the plane lies somewhere within that patch. "We're not at the point where we're particularly concerned," he says.
But with 70 per cent of the search zone covered, the window for success is narrowing, and one question is being asked with increasing frequency: What if they're looking in the wrong place?
Dolan hates hypotheticals. Still, given that he doesn't believe his well-equipped and well-trained crews could drift over the wreckage and miss it, he concedes that if the plane isn't found in the current search zone, it must be because their working theory of what happened on board is wrong.
Malaysia, as the country where the plane was registered, is in charge of figuring out what happened to Flight 370 and why. Australia, as the country closest to where officials believe the plane crashed, is tasked with finding it. But there is necessarily some overlap; Australia had to settle on one of the many theories about Flight 370's fate in order to determine where to look.
The theory the ATSB considers the most probable, based on several factors including satellite data, is that no one was at the controls of the plane when it hit the water. Malaysia long ago said the plane's erratic movements after it took off from Kuala Lumpur were consistent with deliberate actions by someone on board, suggesting someone in the cockpit intentionally flew the aircraft off course. The question Australian officials have focused on is what happened after that.
Analysis of exchanges between the plane's engine and a satellite showed the plane flew south on a straight path during its final hours, suggesting it was on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the water. Based on that theory, and the location of the final "handshake" between the plane and the satellite, officials calculated the current search area.
Some skeptics have increasingly been pushing an alternate theory: that someone was still controlling the plane at the end of its flight. If that was the case, the plane could have glided much farther, tripling in size the patch of ocean where it could have crashed.
Dolan says officials have always considered that theory, but it is seen as unlikely for several reasons. Among them: The final "handshake" between the plane and a satellite indicated that the aircraft had lost power and it occurred at a point consistent with it running out of fuel. That matters, Dolan says, because if a pilot wants to control the ditching of an aircraft, he or she is trained to do so while there is still power available to the engines. Also, if someone had been at the controls with the goal of maximizing the aircraft's range while crossing the Indian Ocean, the plane could have flown around 300 kilometres (190 miles) farther than the satellite evidence shows it did. That's because pilots use a technique called step climb to alter the plane's altitude in a bid to preserve fuel on long flights.
"All our analysis tells us that by far the most likely scenario is, for whatever reason, that there were no control inputs at the end of flight," Dolan says. "But we have never discounted the possibility of the other scenarios."
As the debate rolls on, so too does the underwater search of the mountainous seabed, which reaches depths of 6.5 kilometres (4 miles). A Chinese ship has just joined the hunt equipped with a state-of-the-art towed sonar device, bringing to four the number of vessels scanning the rugged terrain for wreckage. China's contribution of the ship marks the first time it has agreed to share the financial cost of the search with Malaysia and Australia, which have each pledged $60 million to the hunt. Most of the 239 people on board were Chinese.
Two of the other ships are dragging sonar devices called "towfish" just above the seabed to scan for debris. Another ship, Havila Harmony, has a manoeuvrable deep-sea drone that has been fitted with a camera and high-resolution sonar for searching difficult terrain and for taking a closer look at areas of interest.
Over the past year, the crews have endured a series of hardships: violent weather, on-board medical dramas that forced the ships to return to port, equipment snafus. In January, one of the towfish crashed into an underwater volcano.
Officials got a rare boost in July when a piece of the plane's wing washed up on Reunion Island on the other side of the Indian Ocean. The discovery of the first confirmed debris from Flight 370 sent a buzz through the Australian search team, Dolan says. This week, authorities announced that an aircraft part that appeared to be from a Boeing 777 washed up in Mozambique; the horizontal stabilizer has yet to be confirmed as part of Flight 370.
An analysis of ocean currents shows that both objects could have drifted from the underwater search zone, bolstering confidence the crews are looking in the right spot.
"There was a noticeable increase in the energy levels in the team," after the Reunion find, Dolan says. "I think it's just because if you plug away on what were essentially mathematical models for a long time, to get something physical that is consistent with what you've been modeling always adds something."
The team hoped that France's analysis of the wing part would reveal clues about what happened at the end of the plane's flight, therefore narrowing the search area. But the analysis hasn't shed any fresh light on that mystery, Dolan says.
As months turn into years, Dolan has had to be cautious about allowing Flight 370 to become all-consuming. He still has an agency to run that is grappling with 130 other investigations, he says. Still, every morning, he checks to see what information came in overnight, eager for good news.
"I always hope I'll get up one morning and we've found it," he says.
Blaine Gibson poses for a photo in Maputo, Mozambique, on Thursday. Photo: AP
The discovery of an apparent piece of debris from missing flight MH370 was all the more remarkable for the fact that the find was no coincidence - but the result of a one-man mission to hunt down wreckage from the airliner.
It is a search that has defied the efforts of multiple nations spending tens of millions of dollars, with a fleet of warships and hundreds of searchers at their disposal.
American adventurer Blaine Gibson said Thursday that when he discovered part of an aircraft on a sandbar off the coast of Mozambique, he initially thought it was from a small plane, and not from the Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared two years ago with 239 people aboard.
If confirmed that the piece of tail section came from Flight MH370, a small piece of the puzzle will have been found, but it might not be enough to help solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.
In an interview, Gibson described how a boat operator took him to a sandbar named Paluma and then called him over after seeing a piece of debris with “NO STEP” written on it.
An undated handout photo released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau on Thursday shows the suspected piece of aircraft debris found on the coast of Mozambique by US searcher Blaine Gibson. Photo: AFP
“It was so light,” said Gibson, who has told reporters that he has spent a long time searching for evidence of missing Flight MH370.
Photos of the debris appear to show the fixed leading edge of the right-hand tail section of a Boeing 777, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorised to speak publicly. Flight MH370 is the only known missing 777.
Gibson said the discovery happened after he decided to go “somewhere exposed to the ocean” on the last day of a trip to the Mozambican coastal town of Vilankulo.
“At first, all I found were usual beach detritus — flip flops, cigarette lighters. Then ‘Junior’ called me over,” said Gibson, using the nickname of the boat operator.
“I think, ‘Wow, this looks like it’s from an airplane but it looks like it’s from a small airplane because it’s very light and very thin. But I suppose there’s a chance that it could be from the plane or from one of those others.’
“In any case, it needs to be preserved, brought to the authorities and investigated,” he said. “So yes, my heart was thumping, there was anticipation, there was excitement.”
But Gibson said he wants “to exercise caution. We don’t yet know what this piece is ... Until it’s been investigated by the experts, I warn not to jump to any conclusions.”
After being interviewed, Gibson went to the Maputo airport to take a flight to Malaysia to participate in second anniversary commemorations of the disappearance.
“It’s important to keep it in perspective,” Gibson said of his find. “This is about the families of the 239 victims, who haven’t seen their relatives for two years now.”
Gibson, who is from Seattle, said the piece of debris is now in the hands of civil aviation authorities in Mozambique, and that he expects it to be transferred to their Australian counterparts.
He said that he had come to Mozambique as part of a dream to see every country in the world.
“It has been my ambition since I was 7 to visit every country in the world. Malawi was number 176, Mozambique was number 177,” he said.
According to New York Magazine, Gibson has spent much of the past year searching for traces of the missing airliner. Gibson has travelled to the Maldives Islands to investigate reports of a plane flying low at the time of the disappearance, Reunion Island to interview a man who found another section of the plane, and met with Australian deputy prime minister Warren Truss to discuss Australia’s seabed search for the plane.
The location of the debris matches investigators’ theories about where wreckage from the plane would have ended up, according to Australian officials.
The plane disappeared on March 8, 2014 and is believed to have crashed somewhere in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean, far off Australia’s west coast and about 6,000km east of Mozambique. Authorities have long predicted that any debris from the plane that isn’t on the ocean floor would eventually be carried by currents to the east coast of Africa.
Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester said Thursday the location of the debris in Mozambique matches investigators’ drift modelling and would therefore confirm that search crews are looking in the right part of the Indian Ocean for the main underwater wreckage. Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai also said the location of the debris lines up with investigators’ predictions.
People who have handled the part, called a horizontal stabilizer, say it appears to be made of fiberglass composite on the outside, with aluminum honeycombing on the inside, the US official said.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is running the search for the plane in remote waters off Australia’s west coast, said the part is expected to be transported to Australia for examination.
Malaysian representatives from the nation’s Civil Aviation department and Malaysia Airlines were heading to Mozambique to discuss the find, Liow said.
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Families devastated by the loss of flight MH370 vowed Sunday never to quit fighting for answers in the aviation mystery and said the huge search for the Malaysia Airlines plane should continue until something is found.
Families gathered for a poignant ceremony in Kuala Lumpur ahead of Tuesday's second anniversary of the jet's disappearance and to argue for an expansion of the search if the current area being scoured comes up empty.
"We are fighting to search on because our loved ones are not home yet. So how can we say it?s the end?" said Jacquita Gonzales, wife of flight steward Patrick Gomes.
The unprecedented Australian-led hunt for wreckage from the Boeing 777 is expected to finish its high-tech scanning of a designated swathe of seafloor in the remote Indian Ocean by July.
Australian, Malaysian and Chinese authorities plan to end the search -- projected to cost up to $130 million -- at that point if no compelling new leads emerge.
A piece of the plane washed up on the French-held island of La Reunion last year, and new debris that is yet to be confirmed as from MH370 was found on a Mozambique beach last week.
But the finds came thousands of kilometres from the suspected crash zone and have yielded no clues.
In one of aviation's greatest enigmas, the plane inexplicably vanished during an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, carrying 239 passengers and crew.
- 'OK, what next?' -
Citing imprecise satellite data, search authorities believe it flew for hours to the remote southern Indian Ocean and went down.
Many relatives remain unconvinced that authorities are searching in the right place.
"If they have exhausted one particular line of inquiry, that doesn?t mean other areas may not come up with something. Just sit down and ask, 'OK, what next'?" said K.S. Narendran, an Indian national whose wife Chandrika was aboard.
Authorities hope to detect debris far down in the ocean depths and eventually recover and analyse the black boxes for clues.
Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and head of the challenging operation, told AFP last week he remained "very hopeful" something can be found before the 120,000-square-kilometre (46,000-square-mile) search zone is fully scanned.
Many next-of-kin accuse the airline and Malaysian government of letting the plane slip away through a bungled response and covering up what caused the disappearance.
Some also allege Malaysia wants to stop searching to prevent embarrassing information from emerging, which the airline and government strongly deny.
Sunday's ceremony included prayers, musical performances and the release of 240 white balloons, one for each passenger and another for the plane.
Relatives say acceptance of their unexplained loss remains impossible two years on.
"We don?t have anything to accept. We still know nothing and we are all in limbo. If anything I am worse than before," said Grace Nathan, a Malaysian attorney who lost her mother.
Added Gonzales: "We will fight on to make sure that we get the truth of exactly what happened to all of them. We will not give up."
Relatives of people aboard the ill-fated Flight MH370 attend a commemoration event in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur March 6, 2016. Photo: Xinhua
Tuesday marks the second anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and also the deadline for legal action with regard to the disappearance.
The Boeing 777 plane was carrying 239 passengers and crew when it went vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Under the International Civil Aviation Organisation Montreal Convention, passengers must file compensation claims within two years of an incident.
However, the families of many victims have been unable to seek legal redress due to issues surrounding legal action. Malaysian law requires relatives to seek consent from Malaysia Airlines before they can sue it.
The unknowns behind the cause of the disappearance have also posed problems to those looking into the legal process. Since the cockpit voice and flight data recorders have not yet been found, the authorities are unable to determine whether fault lies with the plane’s manufacturer, Boeing, or with Malaysia Airlines.
So far, only one piece of debris has been found and confirmed to be from the missing flight. The part, a flaperon, was found washed up on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean in July 2015.
Netherlands-based Fugro Survey continues to search an area off the western coast of Australia with funding and equipment provided by Malaysia, Australia and China.
Given that the aircraft was registered to Malaysia, the responsibility for the investigation lies with their government. However, the bulk of the search has been organised by Australia due it being the closest country to the suspected crash site.
Joao de Abreu, director of the National Civil Aviation Institute of Mozambique, displays a piece of an air plane found off the coast of Mozambique
Locating the crash site has proven difficult. The current search area is based on modelling by the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau operating on the assumption that the crew and passengers were unconscious for the last part of the flight due to lack of oxygen from decompression of the cabin.
Throughout the search critics have argued that modelling does not take into account a theory that the pilot remained conscious for the last leg of the flight.
However, ATSB Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan says all possibilities were examined when deciding on the search area.
“The only level of uncertainty is the behaviour of the aircraft at the very end of its flight. The weight of the evidence indicates that there were no control inputs to the aircraft at the very end of its flight and that’s the basis on which we have calculated the search area,” he told Australian newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald recently.
Some 85,000 sq km have currently been completed of the planned 120,000 sq km search site. The bureau has said the search is likely to be completed by June this year and there are no current plans to extend it.
In a press release from December 2015, the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said the Australian, Chinese and Malaysia governments had agreed not to broaden the search without further credible evidence. The discovery of another possible piece of debris has not altered this plan.
The debris, a piece of metal suspected to be from a Boeing 777, was found washed up on a beach in Mozambique on Thursday on February 27. The one-meter-long piece is to be transferred to Australia for examination to determine whether it is from MH370.
Australian transport minister Darren Chester confirmed the find will not alter the search area.
“[It] is consistent with drift modelling commissioned by the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau and reaffirms the search area for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean,” he said.
With just months to go, the most expensive search of its kind in history is running out of time to provide answers.
Transport ministers to discuss future of MH370 search
AFP on July 20, 2016, 4:30 pm
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Transport ministers from Australia, China and Malaysia will meet Friday to discuss the future of the frustrating deep-sea search for missing flight MH370, officials said on Wednesday.
The Australian-led search is scouring the seafloor within a designated 120,000-square-kilometre (46,000-square-mile) belt of remote Indian Ocean where authorities believe the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet may have gone down.
Searching is expected to be completed possibly in the next few weeks, and the three countries have said the hugely expensive high-tech sonar operation far off western Australia will not be further expanded without "credible" new evidence pointing to a crash site.
"The search has been unprecedented in both size and scale, conducted in some of the world's most isolated waters and at times in extremely challenging weather," Australia's Transport Minister Darren Chester said Wednesday.
"The meeting will provide an opportunity to reflect on achievements to date and discuss next steps as we near completion of the 120,000 square kilometre search area," he added.
The Boeing 777 vanished March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard, mostly Chinese nationals.
The cause of its disappearance is unknown and remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.
Amid expectations that the search will soon draw to a close, some families have called for it to be continued indefinitely until the mystery is solved.
Many families continue to allege that only a deliberate cover-up could explain the lack of answers, and some are demanding a reassessment of available data to determine whether authorities are looking in the right area.
The sweep of the search area is expected to be completed within weeks. Picture: Justin Baulch/ Australian Transport Safety Bureau
Several pieces of debris that apparently drifted thousands of kilometres toward the western Indian Ocean and African coast have been identified as definitely or probably from the Boeing 777, confirming that it indeed must have gone down.
Friday's meeting will be held in the Malaysian administrative capital Putrajaya and will also be attended by Malaysia's Liow Tiong Lai and China's Yang Chuantang.
Missing MH370 wreckage may be further north, study suggests
AFP on July 28, 2016, 4:44 am
Paris (AFP) - Just days after authorities mooted suspending the ocean search for missing flight MH370, researchers suggested on Wednesday that the debris zone may stretch a further 500 kilometres (310 miles) north.
A team of Italian scientists used computer modelling, into which they fed data on ocean currents and winds over the past two years, to try and pinpoint the Malaysia Airlines plane's likely underwater grave.
They also added information on the location of five confirmed pieces of debris found to date ? two in Mozambique and one each in Reunion, South Africa, and Mauritius.
"One of the most important findings is that everything that has been discovered so far is indeed compatible with the area where the authorities are searching," lead researcher Eric Jansen of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Italy told AFP.
"The most likely (crash) area we found in our simulations overlaps with the official search area," he said. But it also stretches a further 500 km north.
"If nothing is found in the current search area, it may be worth extending the search in this direction," said Jansen, while conceding "the area is very large."
Last week, Malaysia, Australia and China said hopes of finding the doomed plane were fading and the search would be suspended if nothing is found in the current search zone.
The Boeing 777 vanished on March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people aboard. It remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.
The Australian-led search operation is scanning the seafloor at forbidding depths within a 120,000-square-kilometre (46,000-square-mile) area -- nearly the size of Greece.
"I don't expect really that the authorities will change their opinion based on this" new data, said Jansen.
"The search is incredibly expensive and has being going on for two years," he said, adding: "it is, of course, a question of money."
Jansen described the disappearance of the plane as "bizarre".
"It is important to understand what happened, not only for all the people directly involved, but also for the safety of aviation in general," he said in a statement issued by the European Geosciences Union, which publishes the Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences journal in which the study was carried.
"We hope that we can contribute to this, even if our study is just a small piece of a very complicated puzzle."
Mozambique shows 3 new pieces of suspected MH370 debris
AFP on September 5, 2016, 11:38 pm
Mozambique shows 3 new pieces of suspected MH370 debris
Maputo (AFP) - Mozambique authorities on Monday exhibited three new pieces of aircraft that washed up along its coast and are suspected of belonging to the missing flight MH370.
The largest item is a triangular shaped piece which is red and white on one side and metallic on the other.
It was picked up late last month by a South African hotelier off the waters of Mozambique's southern province of Inhambane.
Joao de Abreu, director of Mozambique's aviation authority said it was the first time a coloured piece had been found.
At a news conference, he said the piece could be "an aileron, a flap,(or) an elevator."
On the inside, "we can see a label which will make it much easier to identify which aircraft it belongs to," he said.
The other two pieces are smaller and were picked up by the son of a European Union diplomat near the southern resort of Xai Xai and handed to the authorities last month, he said, giving no further details.
The items will be sent to Malaysia for examination.
Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 vanished in March 2014 with 239 people onboard as it was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Australia, which is leading the search, has determined that the five pieces of debris examined so far -- found in Mozambique, South Africa and Mauritius -- almost certainly came from the plane.
The first debris linked to MH370 -- a two-metre-long (almost seven-foot) wing part known as a flaperon -- washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion a year ago.
MH370 'debris' handed to Australian agency by amateur investigator
AFP on September 12, 2016, 9:52 pm
Canberra (AFP) - An American amateur investigator handed possible debris from missing flight MH370 to Australian officials Monday and said several pieces were blackened by flames, raising the prospect of a flash fire onboard.
Mystery has surrounded the fate of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 since it disappeared on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 passengers and crew on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The Boeing 777 is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean after inexplicably veering off course, but its final resting place has not been found despite an intense underwater search off Australia's far west coast.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is coordinating the search, said Blaine Gibson had handed over unspecified debris on Monday.
"We are seeking advice from the Malaysian authorities regarding how they would like to proceed," an ATSB spokesman told AFP.
Gibson, a lawyer from Seattle who has travelled the world trying to solve the MH370 mystery, told local reporters the debris which had washed up in Madagascar included what appeared to be an internal panel.
He has handed his findings to authorities in the past and said he had brought the recently found pieces to Australia for forensic investigation.
- 'Signs of melting' -
"The top layer of paint has been singed, scorched black," he told Channel 7 of one piece. "It also shows some signs of melting... as you see when something is exposed to fire.
"It appears to be from the interior of the plane but not the main cabin, perhaps the cargo hold, perhaps the avionics bay."
Gibson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the pieces could be a "real game changer" if they were found to belong to MH370.
"One of the theories is that there was a fire on the plane," he said, adding that there was as yet no evidence to support this theory.
Gibson has said he is paying his own travel costs and searching for the missing aircraft "just out of personal interest".
The debris was handed over as eight relatives of those onboard the flight had a private visit with ATSB officials.
The relatives from China, Malaysia and Indonesia had earlier been shown around one of the search vessels in Western Australia.
Canberra has been leading the massive search for MH370 within the 120,000-square-kilometre (46,000-square-mile) search zone set to be fully scoured by December.
But the underwater hunt has so far failed to find a single piece of debris from the plane, fuelling speculation that the crash site may be outside the current search zone.
The zone was defined under the "most likely" scenario that no one was at the controls as the plane ran out of fuel.
The first piece of debris found from MH370 -- a two-metre wing part known as a flaperon -- washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion in July 2015.
Since then a range of debris linked to the flight has been found along western Indian Ocean shorelines.
