Aircraft debris that washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion that might belong to the vanished Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 arrived in France yesterday for investigators to study its origin.
According to a Reuters witness and Agence France Presse, an Air France flight carrying the debris landed at Orly Airport near Paris at 04:17am.
It is to be delivered to a military unit near the southwestern French city of Toulouse which specializes in analyzing aviation wreckage.
Photo: Reuters
Experts hope the barnacled 2.5m-long wing surface known as a flaperon and a fragment of luggage could yield clues as to the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished without trace in March last year.
There were 239 passengers and crew on board and some families of the victims are demanding further compensation from the airline.
Malaysian Minister of Transport Liow Tiong Lai told reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday that additional Malaysian officials were headed to Reunion to look for more debris and others would go to France.
“If the flaperon does belong to MH370 it is actually in accordance with the drift pattern seen in the southern Indian Ocean. But we do not want to speculate. We will wait for verification from the French authorities,” he said.
Discovery of the debris might finally confirm the plane crashed into the sea after veering off course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, helping to end 16 months of lingering uncertainty for relatives.
Investigators believe someone deliberately switched off MH370’s transponder before diverting it thousands of kilometers off course. Most of the passengers were Chinese.
The debris is set to be analyzed at a lab staffed by 600 experts that is operated by the French Ministry of Defense near Toulouse.
If the serial number on the flaperon confirms that it is from Flight 370 then the laboratory can use sophisticated tools to try to glean more information about the causes of the crash, such as whether its shape corresponds more to a mid-air explosion or a crash into the ocean.
The Ministry of Defense also contributed to the investigation of Air France flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris that killed 228 people in June 2009.
A fragment of luggage that was also found in the area is being flown into France with the aircraft debris and is to be sent to a unit outside Paris that specializes in DNA tests.
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