MH370: Debris flaperon found on Reunion is of missing Malaysia Airlines' Boeing

PARIS: The flaperon, a part of aircraft's wing, found on French Reunion Island in July was from the missing Malaysia Airlines' (MAS) Boeing flight MH370, the international aviation experts who were studyig the debris in a French laboratory have concluded.

"Consequently, it is possible today to affirm with certainty that the flaperon discovered at the Reunion Island on July 29, 2015 came from MH370," the office of Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said in a statement. This was a confirmation of what Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had said last month. The French authorities were then sceptical.

In late July an unnamed person found the two-metre-long flaperon wing debris washed up on a beach on Reunion island, a French overseas territory. It was then flown to France for tests by aviation experts.

It is now widely agreed that the plane on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 had veered off its course and possibly disappeared over the Idian ocean, in the opposite direction. It had gone out of radar over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. The Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 people aboard last March. Most of the passengers were Chinese.

There is no clue to what happened to the plane. It could be mechanical failure, terror or a rogue pilot action. Investigators, however, believe the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

The debris was discovered at the Reunion island on July 29 last. The French authorities as also Malaysia and Australia had intesified searches in and around Reunion for more debris but none has been found so far.

French investigators said on Thursday that Airbus Defense and Space (ADS-SAU) which had made the part for Boeing formally identified the part. There were three numbers on the flaperon that tallied with the number on MH370.

The Malaysian government had last month asserted that the flaperon belonged to MH370.

September 4, 2015

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