KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 — Early investigations by the Philippine army on the southern Philippine island of Tawi Tawi has so far not turned up any plane wreckage as previously claimed by witnesses, a local daily reported.
The report in Philippine Inquirer said naval task commander Captain Giovanni Carlo Bacordo confirmed the armed forces had interviewed the 3.5 mile-long island’s local residents who said they had not seen or heard any plane crash.
“Since yesterday, we deployed a gunboat there because of the news. We interviewed the people there, the fishermen, but they have no knowledge about it.
“Even the populace residing in the island for the longest time have no knowledge of this,” the report quoted Bacordo as saying.
He said that they were looking into the report despite being “surprised” by the claims that surfaced recently.
On Saturday, a 46-year-old audio-visual technician filed a police report in Sandakan claiming that a visiting relative from Sugbay Island in the Tawi Tawi province of Southern Philippines had stumbled upon aircraft wreckage there in early September while hunting for birds.
Jamil Omar said the relative and a few others saw the wreckage of the plane in the jungle, along with human skeletal remains in the pilot’s chair with the seat belt fastened.
According to him, they also took a flag they found in the wreckage, which he believed was that of the MH370 plane that went missing en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
Sabah police commissioner Datuk Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman had on Sunday said that police were still investigating the case and could not confirm or verify the information yet.
US news channel CNN reported last month that French authorities confirmed with “certainty” that the plane flaperon found July on Reunion Island, a French island in the Indian Ocean, came from Flight MH370.
