Officials confirm plane debris is from a Boeing 777

Author: associated press
Published: Updated:
MGN

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia- Malaysian officials said Sunday that they would seek help from territories near the island where a suspected piece of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was discovered to try to find more possible debris from the plane.

Government officials will ask territories near the French island of Reunion to alert them if they find any debris that could be from a plane, said a transport ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A wing flap suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was found Wednesday on Reunion island, in the western Indian Ocean. It arrived Saturday at a French military testing facility, where it will be analyzed by experts.

Air safety investigators, including one from Boeing, have identified the component as a flaperon from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing, a U.S. official has said. Flight 370 is the only missing 777 and many are convinced the flap comes from the ill-fated jet.

Malaysia’s transport ministry confirmed Sunday that the flaperon has been identified as being from a 777, saying it had been verified by French authorities together with Boeing, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and a Malaysian team.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said in a statement that the Department of Civil Aviation is reaching out to authorities in territories near Reunion to allow experts “to conduct more substantive analysis should there be more debris coming on to land, providing us more clues to the missing aircraft.”

French aviation experts will try to establish whether the wreckage that was found on Reunion comes from Flight 370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

The experts will start their inquiry on Wednesday, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. On Monday, an investigating judge will meet with Malaysian authorities and representatives of the French aviation investigative agency, known as the BEA.

 

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