Page 10 - AAA 31 JULY 2015
P. 10
UP FRONT A3
Friday 31 July 2015
Discovery May Help
Solve MH370 Mystery
A. MELDRUM 239 people on board, is French police officers carry a piece of debris from a plane in The wing piece is about 2
S. CORBET the only 777 known to be Saint-Andre, Reunion Island. Air safety investigators, one of meters (6 feet) long. Inves-
Associated Press missing. The unsuccessful them a Boeing investigator, have identified the component as a tigators have found a num-
SAINT-ANDRE, Reunion (AP) search for the plane has flaperon from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing, a U.S. of- ber on the part, but it is not
— A barnacle-encrusted raised concerns worldwide ficial said. Flight 370, which disappeared March 8, 2014, with 239 a serial or registration num-
wing part that washed up about whether airliners people on board, is the only 777 known to be missing. ber, Truss said. It could be
on a remote Indian Ocean should be required to trans- a maintenance number,
island could help solve mit their locations continu- (AP Photo/Lucas Marie) which may help investiga-
one of aviation’s greatest ally via satellite, especially tors figure out what plane it
mysteries, as investigators when flying long distances plane wing. Riviere corroborated his belongs to, he said.
work to connect it to the over the ocean. Authorities wouldn’t com- account, and praised him Malaysian authorities also
Malaysia Airlines flight that “It’s the first real evidence ment Thursday on whether for the discovery. Members headed to Reunion and
vanished more than a year that there is a possibility Begue was the first to re- of Begue’s soccer team Toulouse.
ago. that a part of the aircraft port discovering the com- kidded him on his new “We have had many false
The surprise discovery of the may have been found,” ponent. Colleague Teddy fame in local media. alarms before, but for the
debris on a rocky beach said Australian Transport sake of the families who
stirred hopes and emo- Minister Warren Truss, have lost loved ones, and
tion among families of the whose country is leading suffered such heartbreak-
missing, after a year and a the search for the plane in ing uncertainty, I pray that
half of grieving and frustra- a remote patch of ocean we will find out the truth so
tion at a lack of answers, far off Australia’s west that they may have clo-
despite a wide, deep and coast. sure and peace,” Prime
expensive multinational “It’s too early to make that Minister Najib Razak said in
search effort in the south- judgment, but clearly we a statement.
ern Indian Ocean, the are treating this as a major French law enforcement
China Sea and the Gulf of lead,” Truss said. authorities are on Reunion
Thailand. If it turns out to be part of island to examine the
Even if it is confirmed to be the Malaysian plane, that piece, according to an of-
a long-awaited first clue could bolster the theory ficial close to the investiga-
to the disappearance of that the plane deviated tion of the debris. q
Flight 370, there’s no guar- from its path between Kua-
antee that investigators la Lumpur and Beijing and
can still find the plane’s re- turned south into the Indian
corders or other remains a Ocean.
year and a half later. And it would put to rest
The coming hours and days speculation that it could
will be crucial. French au- have traveled north or
thorities moved the plane landed somewhere after
piece from the beach to being hijacked.
the local airport on Re- The discovery has changed
union, and will send it next the life of Reunion environ-
to the city of Toulouse, mental worker Johnny Beg-
where it may arrive Satur- ue. He told The Associated
day morning, according Press that he stumbled
to the Paris prosecutor’s of- across the plane part on
fice. Wednesday morning, while
Toulouse is the hub of Eu- collecting stones to grind
rope’s aerospace industry, spices.
with the headquarters of “I knew immediately it was
Airbus and a network of part of an aircraft, but I
hangars and plane facili- didn’t realize how impor-
ties. The plane part will be tant it was, that it could
analyzed in special de- help to solve the mystery of
fense facilities used for air- what happened to the Ma-
plane testing and analysis, laysian jet,” Begue, 46, told
according to the Defense The Associated Press.
Ministry. He said he called several
Air safety investigators, of his workmates and they
including one from Boe- carried the wing fragment
ing, have identified the out of the water so that it
component found on the would not be battered by
French island of Reunion as the surf against the vol-
a “flaperon” from the trail- canic rocks that make up
ing edge of a Boeing 777 most of the beach.
wing, a U.S. official said. Begue also discovered a
The official wasn’t autho- piece of a suitcase about
rized to be publicly named. 2.5 meters away, he said,
Flight 370, which disap- though it’s unclear wheth-
peared March 8, 2014, with er there is any link to the
