Relatives suspect plane debris could be ‘fake’

Chinese family members of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines flight reacted with anger and scepticism yesterday after Malaysia’s government said a piece of wing debris found on an Indian Ocean island last week was from the plane.

Flight MH370 was carrying 239 passengers and crew when it disappeared in March last year en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Most of those on board were Chinese.

The Malaysian prime minister’s announcement that the barnacle-covered piece of wing known as a flaperon was part of the MH370 Boeing 777 was the first direct evidence the plane had crashed in the ocean.