Paris/Kuala Lumpur, July 31: Experts are getting increasingly “confident” that the plane wreckage found on Reunion island is part of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, media reports said on Friday. Martin Dolan, head of the Australian agency coorditing the underwater search for the plane, told CNN that he is “increasingly confident, but not yet certain” that the debris is from MH370.
Aviation investigators still have to make a definitive judgement on whether the item, which appears to be a wing component, is from the aircraft that disappeared on March 8 last year, with 239 people aboard, while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The wreckage found on Wednesday in Reunion, a French territory about 600 km east of Madagascar, resembled a flaperon — a moving part of the wing surface — from a Boeing 777. Also found was the remains of a battered suitcase.
Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office said the piece will be sent to the city of Toulouse, France, on Saturday. Aviation investigators from the Toulouse-based body, the General Directorate of Armaments will alyse it next week.
Malaysian Prime Minister jib Razak, however, said it was too early to speculate whether the part came from the missing flight. A Malaysian team is on the way to Reunion island. The team would be able to conclude in a couple of days if the piece of debris was indeed from the ill-fated plane.
According to The Guardian, an identifying number, BB657, found on the flaperon should allow investigators to quickly confirm whether, as specialist aviation websites appeared to demonstrate, the part did origite from a 777. (IANS)