Wreckage found 'almost certainly' from MH370

 

Kuala Lumpur/Paris, July 31  Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi on Friday said airline wreckage found on Reunion island, "almost certainly" is from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that mysteriously disappeared in March 2014.

According to aviation experts, the wreckage found on Reunion, a French territory about 600 km east of Madagascar, does resemble a flaperon -- a moving part of the wing surface -- from a Boeing 777. Also found was the remains of a battered suitcase.

"The flaperon is similar to that on a Boeing 777 aircraft. It's almost certain," The Malaysian Star quoted the minister as saying.

A Malaysian team is on the way to Reunion island. The team would be able to conclude in a couple of days if the piece of debris was indeed from the ill-fated plane.

According to a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor's office, the wreckage will be transported to France on Friday evening, CNN reported.

Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said the piece will arrive in Paris on Saturday and will be sent to Toulouse, the site of the nearest office of the BEA, the French authority responsible for civil aviation accident investigations.

Boeing investigators are confident that debris found on a remote island in the Indian Ocean comes from a 777 aircraft.

Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian transport safety bureau, also agreed.

"We are highly confident but it still needs confirmation that it is a part from a 777 aircraft," he said.

MH370, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard -- 227 passengers and 12 crew members -- vanished on March 8, 2014, the first and the only Boeing 777 to have disappeared over an ocean.