Page 19 - AUA Traveller

MH370 SEARCH:

Wreckage off Reunion Island
to be tested in France

Debris found on the Indian Ocean island of Re- 19INTERNATIONAL
union is to be transported to France to find out
whether it is from the missing flight MH370,
Malaysia’s prime minister has said.

INITIAL reports suggest the two-meter long object is very

likely to be from a Boeing 777, Najib Razak said.
The Malaysia Airlines flight - a Boeing 777 - vanished while
travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014. The
search has focused on part of the southern Indian Ocean east
of Reunion.

Oceanographer David Griffin, of Australia’s national science
agency, said that the location of the find was “consistent with
where we think debris might have turned up”. There were 239
passengers and crew on board the plane when it went missing.
Mr. Najib said French authorities were taking the debris to the
southern French city of Toulouse - the site of the nearest office
of the French body responsible for air accident investigations
(the BEA) - to verify it as quickly as possible.
He said the location of the debris was consistent with drift
analysis provided to Malaysian investigators. “As soon as we
have more information or any verification we will make it public.
I promise the families of those lost that whatever happens, we
will not give up.”
Malaysia has sent a team of investigators and other officials to
Toulouse and another team of experts to Reunion - a French
overseas department.

It’s been reported that French aviation authorities have a huge
hangar facility in the city to store and study wreckage, as they
did with the Air France airliner that crashed on its way from
Brazil to Paris in 2009.
Aviation experts who have studied photos of the debris, found
on Wednesday, say it resembles a flaperon - a moving part of
the wing surface - from a Boeing 777. On Thursday, a municipal
employee also found what appeared to be part of a damaged
suitcase on the Reunion coast.

A French police helicopter is now scouring waters around
Reunion for other debris. Dr Simon Boxall, an oceanographer
from the UK’s University of Southampton, said that the search
for debris could also now include the coasts of Madagascar and
South Africa, west of Reunion.
“The key piece of information is still going to be sitting with the
black boxes on the sea floor,” he said. Search efforts for MH370,
led by Australia, are focused on an area west of the Australian
city of Perth - about 4,000km east of Reunion. The Australian
government has described the discovery of the wreckage as “a
very significant development”.

ARUBA TRAVELLER - Friday, July 31 2015