New hopes have been raised in search for the Malaysia Airlines jet, which disappeared on March 8 last year, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, following the recent discovery of an aircraft wreckage on the island of La Réunion.
Namely, on July 29, a two-metre-long wing part called a flaperon was discovered on the French Indian Ocean island of La Réunion and identified as being from a Boeing 777. The only Boeing 777 unaccounted for in the world is the missing MH370.
Other debris have washed up on the island but investigators have ruled out links to the missing MH370.
The French and Malaysian-led international investigation team is going to examine aircraft wreckage today, joined by an investigator from the the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) which leads the underwater search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. According to the latest ATSB update, close to 60,000 square kilometers of the seafloor have been searched so far.
“Malaysian and French officials may be in a position to make a formal statement about the origin of the flaperon later this week,” said Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss.
Truss furthermore mentioned that Australia’s CSIRO drift modelling, commissioned by the ATSB, confirms that material from the current search area could have been carried to La Réunion, as well as other locations.