| CNN | - |
(CNN)
Apparent airplane debris found off the coast of Reunion island, a
French department in the western Indian Ocean, is being examined to see
if it is connected to the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight
370, a member of the French air ...
Debris looks like Boeing 777, could be MH370, says source
Story highlights
- Source close to investigation says Boeing officials, looking at photos, see element unique to 777 part
- There are indications part is from Boeing 777, but indications otherwise as well
- Experts say it is too soon to determine if part is from Malaysian Airlines 370
(CNN)Apparent
airplane debris found off the coast of Reunion island, a French
department in the western Indian Ocean, is being examined to see if it
is connected to the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a member of the French air force in Reunion said Wednesday.
The debris was found off the coast of St. Andre, a community on the island, according to Adjutant Christian Retournat.
Officials
from Boeing, which built the 777 that was MH370, conducted an initial
assessment of the debris using photographs and their findings suggest
the debris is consistent in appearance with a Boeing 777's flaperon,
which is a piece of the plane's wing, a source close to the
investigation told CNN.
The source said
there is a unique element to the Boeing 777's flaperon that observers
believe they are seeing in photos as well, though the source would not
disclose what that detail is. The source stressed this is preliminary.
Earlier,
Retournat said the debris appeared to be a wing flap and had been taken
to the island, located about 380 nautical miles off the coast of
Madagascar.
The Malaysian government
has dispatched a team to Reunion Island to investigate the debris,
Malaysian Minister of Transportation Liow Tiong Lai said in New York.
"We
need to verify. We have wreckage found that needs to be further
verified before we can further confirm if it belongs to MH370. So we
have dispatched a team to investigate on these issues and we hope that
we can identify it as soon as possible," the minister said.
Police carry a piece of debris from an unidentified aircraft found off the coast of Reunion island.
CNN
analysts say there are indications that the airplane part could be from
a Boeing 777, and if that's the case, it's likely from MH370.
Making
the determination should be "very simple" because the serial numbers
riveted to numerous parts of the plane can be linked to not only the
plane's model, but the exact aircraft, said CNN aviation analyst Les
Abend, who flew 777s during his 30 years as a pilot.
This
means crash investigators may be able to figure it out from photographs
of the part -- which could be an aileron, a flap or a flaperon -- even
before arriving on the island, he said.
There
are at least three elements of the discovery that are consistent with
MH370, said CNN safety analyst David Soucie. The first is that the part
appears to have been torn off of the aircraft.
Airplane debris is being examined to see if it's connected to MH370.
"This is from a sudden impact, it looks like to me," Soucie said.
There
also is a seal on the top of the part that "is consistent with what I
would see on an inside flap on a triple 7," he said, and the barnacles
on the part are consistent with the "parasitic activity" that would take
place from being under water so long.
However,
the part appears to be coated in white paint, which would run counter
to Soucie's other observations in that the 777's parts would be coated
in zinc chromate, not paint. Soucie acknowledged, however, that the part
could be coated in something from the ocean.
"If
it is a part from a triple 7, we can be fairly confident it is from 370
because there just haven't been that many triple 7 crashes and there
haven't been any in this area," said CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo.
MH370 disappeared after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on March 8, 2014, bound for Beijing with 239 people aboard.
Authorities
have said they still don't know why it turned dramatically off course
over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, or where exactly its errant
journey finished.
An
international team of experts used satellite data to calculate that the
plane eventually went down in the southern Indian Ocean. Search teams
have been combing a vast area of the seafloor in the southern Indian
Ocean, hunting for traces of the passenger jet, about 2,300 miles (3,700
kilometers) from where the debris was found.
The Malaysian government eventually declared the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 an accident and all of its passengers and crew presumed dead.
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