EVIDENCE OF A TRAGEDY
Malaysian officials say wing part is from Flight MH370.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A piece of a wing found washed up on Reunion Island last week is from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished last year, Malaysia’s prime minister announced early Thursday, saying he hoped the news would end the “unspeakable” uncertainty of the passengers’ families.
The disappearance of the Boeing 777 jetliner 515 days ago while on a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, has been one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history. Officials believed it crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people aboard, but it is unknown why the plane went down.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed MH370,” Prime Minister Najib Razak said. The French territory is thousands of kilometres from the area being searched for wreckage from the flight.
U.S. and French officials involved in the investigation were more cautious, stopping short of full confirmation but saying it made sense that the metal piece of the wing, known as the flaperon, came from Flight 370.
Intact and encrusted with barnacles, the flaperon was found on a beach and sent to France for scrutiny by the French civil aviation investigation department known by its acronym BEA, and members of its Malaysian and Australian counterparts.
“We now have physical evidence that, as I announced on 24th March last year, flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” Najib said.
At a news conference in Paris, deputy prosecutor Serge Mackowiak didn’t outright confirm that the debris belonged to Flight 370.
“The very strong conjectures are to be confirmed by complementary analysis that will begin tomorrow morning,” Mackowiak said. “The experts are conducting their work as fast as they can to give complete and reliable information as quickly as possible.”
A U.S. official familiar with the investigation said the flaperon clearly is from a Boeing 777. However, a team of experts in France examining the part hadn’t yet been able to find anything linking it specifically to the missing plane, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
With no other 777s or flaperons known to be missing, it makes sense that the part comes from Flight 370, but the U.S. and Boeing team members are merely trying “to be precise,” the official said.
Analysts say the investigators will examine the metal with high-powered microscopes to gain insight into what caused the plane to go down. It is also not known why Flight 370 — less than an hour into the journey — turned back from its original flight path and headed in an opposite direction before turning left and flying south over the Indian Ocean for hours. Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that relatives of the passengers and crew “have already been informed and we extend our deepest sympathies to those affected.”
Jacquita Gomes, the wife of crew member Patrick Gomes, said she was told by the airline of the news about a half-hour before Najib’s announcement.
“Now that they have confirmed it as MH370, I know my husband is no longer of this world, but they just can’t leave it with this one flaperon. We urge them to continue searching until they find the plane and bring it back,” she said.
“We still need to know what happened. They still need to find the plane. They still need to find the black box to get the truth out. It brings some sort of closure but not a complete closure.”
Gomes said she hopes to get her husband’s body back so the family can give him a proper burial and say goodbye.
She said she watched the announcement on TV with one of her daughters, while her youngest child, a 15-year-old son, was asleep.
“My son doesn’t know yet that his dad is really gone, that he won’t be back,” she said, in tears. “I will have to tell him tomorrow before he goes to school.”