Part 0f wing arrives in France as MH370 link investigated
PARIS, Aug 1, 2015 ( AFP) -A piece of a Boeing 777 wreckage that washed up on an Indian Ocean island arrived for analysis in France early Saturday, after Malaysian authorities said the part was almost certainly recovered from missing flight MH370.Paris' Orly airport website confirmed the Air France flight transporting the piece of wreckage landed at 6.17 am local time ( 0417 GMT) from the French island of La Reunion.
A police escort will accompany the two-metre (6.5 foot) part on its journey by road to a defence ministry laboratory near the southwestern city of Toulouse.
Experts will begin their analysis on Wednesday, along with an examination of parts of a suitcase discovered nearby.
If confirmed, the discovery would mark the first breakthrough in a case that has baffled aviation experts for 16 months.
The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared on March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were 239 people on board.
“I believe that we are moving closer to solving the mystery of MH370. This could be the convincing evidence that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean,” Malaysia's deputy transport minister Ab- dul Aziz Kaprawi told AFP.
Boeing said in a statement Friday that it would send a technical team to France to study the plane debris at the request of civil aviation authorities.
For the families of the victims, torn between wanting closure and hoping that their loved ones were somehow still alive, the discovery of the wing part has been yet another painful turn on an emotional rollercoaster.
Ghyslain Wattrelos, whose wife and two children were on the flight, said he was relieved to get the smallest bit of information about the missing plane.
Australian search authorities, which are leading the Indian Ocean hunt for the aircraft some 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) from La Reunion, said they were confident the main debris field was in the current search area.