Investigators have retrieved what they believe is a piece of debris from MH370 that refutes the theory that the plane was deliberately ditched in the southern Indian Ocean.

American amateur investigator Blaine Alan Gibson, who has found, retrieved, and/or handed in dozens of pieces of debris, says the new piece, which he refers to as ‘NO STEP 2’ because of its distinctive lettering, supports the hypothesis that there was a mid-air breakup of MH370’s right wing.

“This is yet another debris find that refutes the theory that MH370 was brought down in a controlled ditching,” he told Changing Times.

Some YouTubers, book authors, and commentators have claimed that the pilot in command of MH370, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, committed murder-suicide by deliberately ditching the plane in the ocean.

The Malaysian International Civil Aviation Organisation Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370 said in its full report that it was not of the opinion that Captain Zaharie caused the plane’s disappearance.

MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 passengers and crew on board. It was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The maritime exploration company Ocean Infinity is due to resume its search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean on December 30 this year.

Malaysia’s transport ministry said the search would be carried out in a targeted area “assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft, in accordance with the service agreement entered between the government of Malaysia and Ocean Infinity on 25 March 2025”.

‘NO STEP 2’ was found washed ashore by a local fisherman near Evatra (approximately 25°S, 47°E) in southeast Madagascar. The item was not recognised as being a possible piece of MH370 until a long time after it washed up. The exact dates of when it was found, or finally recognised as a possible aircraft piece, are not known.

‘NO STEP 2’ underside

‘NO STEP 2’ side profile

Gibson requested an analysis of ‘NO STEP 2’ by a senior British Boeing 777 airline captain, who has asked not to be named (for contractual reasons). The analysis has only so far been done at distance using photographs.

“There is a high possibility that this is part of an inboard leading-edge panel from the right wing on 9M-MRO,” the pilot said.

Gibson says ‘NO STEP 2’ disproves the theories about Captain Zaharie deliberately putting MH370 into a “dive, recovery, glide” and ditching it into the ocean.

“You can’t glide a plane if the wing broke apart, and you cannot even attempt to ditch without a wing. So, if the wing broke apart in the air, it totally disproves both of those theories,” he said.

Gibson notes that the wing flap found on Pemba Island, Tanzania, by fishermen in June 2016 was in a retracted position, i.e., in flight mode; not deployed as it would be during a landing.

This shows that there wasn’t a ditching, he says, as does the neutral position of the flaperon found on Reunion island in July 2015.

“‘NO STEP 2’ is just one more piece of that puzzle. It is just one more of 11 recovered pieces of the right wing that show that the wing either broke up in the air during a high-speed dive, or, as most people believe, shattered upon impact with the water, but in a high-speed impact, not a ditching.

“In a ditching, the wing would not shatter as much as the wing of MH370 did.

“All the Hi-Lok pins were stripped out from the leading edge.”

Blaine Gibson in front of the wing flap found in Tanzania. Pictured .at the 5th remembrance event in 2019 in Kuala Lumpur.

‘NO STEP’ is typically written on the top surfaces of an aircraft’s wings and stabiliser.

A piece of debris found in Mozambique in 2016 (pictured left) also carries the ‘NO STEP’ lettering. The Annex 13 team concluded that the item (a right horizontal stabiliser panel piece) was almost certainly from the MAS B777 aircraft registered as 9M-MRO, i.e., MH370.

The Boeing Aircraft Maintenance Manual states that the writing should be in 1inch-high letters on the wing.

Gibson dismisses claims that the wreckage of MH370 is intact under water. “This is obviously false and delusional,” he said.

In all, sixty pieces of MH370 debris either confirmed or thought to be from MH370 have been picked up. Gibson would describe twenty of the retrieved items as “key pieces”.

He added: “The recovered debris pieces are from all parts of the aircraft and all but two or three are small and shattered.

“The fact that 25 pieces from the main cabin have been retrieved shows that the main cabin and fuselage broke apart on impact.”

Debris description

It is stated in the pilot’s analysis that ‘NO STEP 2’ consists of a honeycomb composite structure, with a light grey painted surface on one side and a silver/grey underside. It is approximately 23 inches x 11 inches and weighs 0.72 kg.

“It has a thickness of 1 inch at the thickest part of a composite bulge,” the analysis states. “Aside from the one straight edge, all the edges are torn and fractured.

“Its distinguishing features are a black painted 1 inch-high ‘NO STEP’ stencil, and a ½ inch- wide black line running part way along the straight edge.”

The photo below, which shows the left wing of 9M-MRO, was taken six months before MH370’s disappearance.

The ‘NO STEP’ font and black line match those on the debris piece that has just been analysed.

The following is also noted in the analysis:

• The attachment fasteners have all been torn out leaving only the holes.
• It should be possible to match the hole pattern to an exact position on the wing.
• The 7° angle away from the perpendicular determines that ‘NO STEP 2’ comes from the right wing.
• 7° matches the angle between the inboard leading-edge spar and the wing’s leading edge.
• The fastener lines run perpendicular to the leading edge.
• A black line delineates the ‘NO STEP’ areas on the wings and stabiliser. The Boeing Aircraft Maintenance Manual states that this should be ½ inch wide on the wing.
• The light grey paint colour is consistent with wing colouring.

‘NO STEP 1’

In its full report, published on July 30, 2018, the Annex 13 team makes reference to the piece that became known as ‘NO STEP’.

The piece was found on February 27, 2016, on the Paluma sandbank, located off the coast of Vilankulos, Mozambique.

The item was brought to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s (ATSB’s) laboratory in Canberra for detailed examination and analysis.

“The part was primarily identified from images showing the materials, construction and ‘NO STEP’ stencil, as a segment of a Boeing 777 right horizontal stabiliser panel,” the Annex 13 report states.

“All measurable dimensions, materials, construction and other identifiable features conformed to the Boeing drawings for the stabiliser panel.”

‘NO STEP’ was marked on the upper surface of the part in black paint and the stencilling was consistent with that developed and used by Malaysia Airlines, the Annex 13 team said.

It was the first piece found by Gibson, who has been guided in his search for debris by oceanographer Charitha Pattiaratchi from the University of Western Australia in Perth. Pattiaratchi’s drift analysis guided Gibson to Mozambique and Madagascar.

“’NO STEP 1′ was from the tail,” Gibson explained. “It was a small, shattered piece. It was significant because it was the first evidence that MH370 shattered in a high-speed crash.

“The flaperon, which was found before it, did not prove that, because a plane can fly without a flaperon, but it cannot fly without a tail.

“‘NO STEP 2′ is also torn and shattered.”

Annex 13 report

In all, more than thirty pieces of debris have been examined by the Malaysian authorities and three of them have been confirmed in official reports to be from MH370.

Five pieces were handed over to Anthony Loke in November 2018 and the investigating team concluded that one of them – a piece of floor panelling from a passenger cabin – was “likely” to be from MH370.

Loke and Grace Subathirai Nathan, whose mother, Anne Daisy, was on board MH370 when it disappeared, are pictured below holding the item.

The only debris that is said to be from MH370 has been retrieved on the African mainland and on islands off the African coast.

The full investigation team report states that items of debris possibly from MH370 have been found as far north as the eastern coast of Tanzania and as far south as the eastern coast of South Africa. It says this is “in addition to several islands and island nations off the east coast of the African continent”.

Of these items, the flaperon (pictured below) that was found on Reunion island in July 2015 and is still in the possession of the French authorities, a part of the right outboard flap, and a section of the left outboard flap were confirmed to be from MH370, the report states.

The report states that 27 significant pieces of debris had been recovered and examined at the time it was produced.

Seven pieces of debris, including some cabin interior items, had been determined to be “almost certainly” from the plane, eight pieces were “highly likely” to be from MH370, and one piece was “likely” to be from the plane.

Blaine Gibson with debris found in June 2016 on Île Sainte-Marie, Madagascar.

Gibson notes that the Annex 13 team was disbanded in 2019. “Malaysia has not published any investigation of any debris since then,” he said.

In addition to the 33 pieces mentioned in the Annex 13 report, there are another 27 pieces that that have been identified by experts from photographs. Gibson says.

“Some of those were delivered to Malaysia, but Malaysia didn’t do an official investigation because the Annex 13 team had already been disbanded,” he told Changing Times.

Crash analyses

The airline pilot who conducted the latest debris analysis has also produced an MH370 ‘crash analysis’. He says the evidence for a high-energy, uncontrolled crash at fuel exhaustion is now overwhelming.

“An uncontrolled spiral dive fits best with all the evidence,” he said.

“Most of more than fifty debris pieces that have been found indicate a high-energy impact,” the pilot said.

“These pieces originate from all parts of the aircraft and many are from inside the cabin. Perhaps only three (the right flaperon, an outboard flap, and a spoiler) could be indicative of a low energy crash.”

Two of these pieces also indicate that the flaps were not deployed when they detached from the wing, the pilot says.

“The trailing edge damage seen on the three aforementioned pieces is either due to high-speed aerodynamic flutter or water impact forces during a controlled landing.

“Water impact can be ruled out as the flaps were never deployed, so the dynamics will not allow for the wing trailing edges to be dragged through the water.”

The lack of severe damage to these three key pieces, especially to their leading edges, means that they must have detached whilst airborne, the pilot concludes.

“As these pieces originate from the same area of the right wing it might be a clue that the right wing may have failed at this position before ocean impact,” he said.

Analyses by several other investigators support the conclusion that MH370’s right wing detached in the air.

Engineer Tom Kenyon conducted in-depth analysis of the flaperon, performing a Finite Element Analysis on a numerical model and reviewing photographs.

He concluded that the damage to the flaperon’s two hinge attachments was not consistent with what would be expected if it was attached to the wing during an impact with water.

“It seems possible, but not highly probable, that the flaperon could have separated from the wing prior to final descent due to earlier undefined damages,” Kenyon wrote in a report published in November 2020 (updated in 2021).

“It appears more probable that the majority of stress fatigue damage and ultimate separation occurred during a high speed, high altitude, descent while power and hydraulic systems were in fuel exhausted modes.”

Kenyon says the observed trailing edge damage “would be consistent with a torsional flutter scenario”.

Torsional flutter happens when aerodynamic forces on a structure such as an aircraft wing cause it to twist, with vibrations increasing until failure.

Independent investigators Mike Exner and Don Thompson analysed a piece of debris retrieved on a beach in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, in August 2020 that they identified as a fragment of an inboard spoiler from a Boeing 777’s right wing.

They said their analysis suggested that the fragment broke away during an uncontrolled, high-speed descent after the plane ran out of fuel and before it hit the water.

They said the item (pictured below) presented “sufficient detail to conclude, without ambiguity, that it is a fragment of a right-wing inboard spoiler originating from a Boeing 777”.

Exner and Thompson noted that, at the time of their analysis, four fragments of adjacent right-wing structures had been recovered, including the inboard spoiler fragment, the right- wing flaperon, the inboard segment of the right-wing outboard flap, and a part segment of an outboard and aft upper fixed panel.

“The inboard spoiler, flap and flaperon each separated from the mounting attachments fixing the structures to the rear spar of the right wing,” they stated.

“The damage exhibited by these three structures is consistent with a span-wise, destructive, flex of the right wing. It is feasible that subsequent to fuel exhaustion, an uncontrolled descent would involve aircraft airspeeds that present dynamic aeroelastic loads beyond the design limits of the aircraft.”

They added: “The nature of the fractures to the subject article [the spoiler fragment], the metal hinge structures of the flaperon, and the carrier of the outboard flap, together with the visual evidence of damage within the outboard flap ‘seal pan’ all suggest that the forces leading to the detachment of these structures initiated in the core torsion box of the wing and not from forces due to external contact applied at the trailing edge of the control surfaces.”

New Ocean Infinity search

The Malaysian government announced on December 3 that Ocean Infinity would resume its search for MH370 on December 30.

“Ocean Infinity has confirmed with the government of Malaysia that it will recommence seabed search operations for a total of 55 days, to be conducted intermittently,” the transport ministry said.

Ocean Infinity is expected to use its Armada 86 05 robotic vessel for the resumed search.

The company suspended its new search for MH370 on March 28 this year. The company cited seasonal weather changes and unavoidable prior commercial commitments.

In the southern Indian Ocean, the ‘search season’ is limited by the fact that the weather begins to become rough in May and only starts to improve in November.

Armada 78 06 was deployed in the southern Indian Ocean in April this year, but only officially began its search for MH370 on March 25 after its ‘no find, no fee’ contract with the Malaysian government was signed.

Full details about the terms and conditions of the search were not made available and no press release about the contract signing was issued, but Anthony Loke said in March that the Malaysian government would not be required to pay Ocean Infinity unless the wreckage of the aircraft was discovered, “with a success fee amounting to US$70 million”.

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