Experts in France have begun examining an aircraft part that washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion last week to see if it is from Flight MH370. The wing fragment, known as a flaperon, is from a Boeing 777, the same make as the missing Malaysian airliner.
France has invited Malaysian and Australian aviation experts to Balma to help with the investigation. Australia’s Deputy PM Warren Truss said the teams may be able to say this week if it came from the plane.
For reasons that remain unclear the Malaysia Airlines plane, with 239 people on board, veered off course on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.
It is believed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean – though no confirmed trace has ever been found despite a massive search operation. The part is being examined under the direction of a judge at an aeronautical test centre run by the French military in Balma, near Toulouse.
