Paris: Malaysia’s prime minister says debris from an aircraft found on the French island of Reunion will be sent to France for investigation. Prime Minister Najib Razak said on his personal blog that a Malaysian team is on its way to the southwestern French city of Toulouse. The sea-crusted wing part that washed up on the island in the western Indian Ocean may be the first trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 since it vanished nearly a year and a half ago.
Najib promised to make any new information public quickly. Air safety investigators — one of them a Boeing investigator — have identified the component found on the French island of Reunion as a “flaperon” from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing, a U.S. official said. Investigators scrambled Thursday to study plane wreckage that washed up on a tiny Indian Ocean island, fuelling hopes that one of aviation’s greatest enigmas could finally be solved: the mystery of missing flight MH370.
The two-metre (six-foot) long piece of wreckage was found on the French island of La Reunion, offering up bittersweet hope of closure to the families of 239 people who disappeared in March last year on the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the debris, believed to be a part of a wing, was “very likely to be from a Boeing 777 but we need to verify whether it is from flight MH370.” But as local French air transport police studied the debris and experts from Malaysia headed to the scene, authorities warned against jumping to conclusions. “Whatever wreckage is found needs to be further verified before we can further confirm whether it belongs to MH370,” Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters in New York, saying he hoped for answers “as soon as possible”.
Flight MH370 was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it mysteriously turned off its route and vanished on March 8 last year. For relatives of those aboard, torn between wanting closure and believing their loved ones were still somehow alive, the discovery was yet another painful turn on an emotional rollercoaster. “It has started all over again, staring at the handphone constantly for news,” said Jacquita Gonzales, wife of Patrick Gomes, the flight’s cabin crew supervisor.
Local government officials on La Reunion said France’s civil aviation investigating authority BEA has been asked to coordinate an international probe into the origin of the debris. “No theory is being ruled out, including that it comes from a Boeing 777,” La Reunion officials said. Najib said authorities would ship the object to the southern French city of Toulouse to be examined by the BEA.
Further adding to the mystery, what appeared to be a piece of luggage was discovered in the same place as the plane wreckage. “It is really weird, it gives me the shivers,” said Johnny Begue, a member of a beach clean-up crew who discovered the plane debris on Wednesday.
Australia said the discovery was an “important development”
Australia, which has led a fruitless 16-month search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean, said the discovery was an “important development”.
“If it is indeed wreckage from MH370, it starts to provide some closure for the families of the people on board,” said Australia’s Transport and Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss.
“From the information that we know about the oceanography and our computer modelling, it is completely consistent with the possible path of the debris originating from the current search area,” said Charitha Pattiaratchi, an oceanographer with the University of Western Australia.
MH370 relatives' emotional rollercoaster after wreckage link
The discovery sparked more emotional turmoil for relatives of those missing. “I’m hopeful, in another respect, I’m not. I guess while you don’t know, you still hope,” said Sara Weeks, sister of MH370 passenger Paul Weeks of New Zealand. “We need to know what happened... at least if it’s confirmed as a part of the plane then we can go onto the next stage which is still pretty similar to where we were before -- what happened, where’s the rest of the plane and where’s my brother.”
Angry next of kin have accused Malaysia’s government of incompetence, secrecy, and insensitivity toward relatives, and many have questioned the focus on the Indian Ocean, saying other possibilities were being ignored.