Plane debris from MH370 wreckage: Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, August 6
Debris found on a remoteisland a week ago is from flight MH370, Malaysia’s prime minister said on Thursday, confirming that the plane which mysteriously disappeared 17 months ago met a tragic end in the Indian Ocean.
“On Thursday, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370,” Najib Razak told reporters.
French prosecutors used more cautious language, saying only there was a “very high probability” the wreckage came from MH370, and that they intended to do more tests before making a definitive conclusion.
The Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared on March 8 last year, inexplicably veering off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.
Last week’s discovery of a two-metre-long wing part called a flaperon on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion provided the first glimmer of hope for relatives desperate for answers.
It was examined yesterday at a military lab outside the French city of Toulouse in the presence of Malaysian and Australian experts, Boeing employees and representatives from China — the country that lost the most passengers in the disaster.
“We now have physical evidence that, as I announced on 24th March last year, flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” Najib said.
Malaysia Airlines hailed the news as a “major breakthrough”.
“We expect and hope that there would be more objects to be found which would be able to help resolve this mystery,” said the airline in a statement.
Sara Weeks, the sister of MH370 passenger Paul Weeks of New Zealand, said the confirmation ended “a week of turmoil”.
“We’ve had 17 months of nothing... so actually finding something is the first step towards pinpointing where it is,” Weeks told the Fairfax New Zealand media group. The discovery of the flaperon on Reunion sparked a rush of beachcombers scouring the coast for more debris.
But Australian authorities said on Thursday that “so far none of it, under examination, has been confirmed as coming from an aircraft”.
It is hoped that more detailed examination in the coming days can yield information on the final moments of the plane by showing how the piece detached itself from the wing, or whether it showed traces of an explosion or fire.
Scientists have also pointed to the barnacles attached to the flaperon, saying these could give an idea of how long the fragment had been in the water, and perhaps where it had been.
‘We’ll find the aircraft’
KUALA LUMPUR: Australian authorities, who have been leading the massive search for the plane, on Thursday also expressed optimism that the main part of the plane would be found.
“We’re confident that we’re looking in the right area and we’ll find the aircraft there,” Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, told ABC radio.