African debris said to be from same type of jet as Flight 370
WASHINGTON — Debris that washed up in Mozambique has been tentatively identified as a part from the same type of aircraft as missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a U.S. official said Wednesday.
Photos of the debris discovered over the weekend appear to show the fixed leading edge of the righthand tail section of a Boeing 777, said the official, who spoke on condition of ano- nymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. MH370, which disappeared two years ago with 239 people aboard, is the only known missing 777.
People who have handled the part, called a horizontal stabilizer, say it appears to be made of fiberglass composite on the outside, with aluminum honeycombing on the inside, the official said. The part is being transported to Malaysia.
MH370 disappeared March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Bei- jing with 12 crew members and 227 passengers on board.
Radar data show the plane turned around as it approached Vietnamese airspace, then flew back across the Malay Peninsula until contact was lost off the coast of Thailand.
Authorities determined that the jetliner continued on a straight path across the Indian Ocean, leading them to believe that the plane flew on autopilot for hours before running out of fuel and crashing into the water.
Despite an exhaustive search of the ocean west of Australia, where the plane is believed to have crashed, the only confirmed trace of the aircraft has been a wing part known as a flaperon that washed ashore last July on the French island of Reunion off the east coast of Africa — about 2,300 miles from the current search area.
Nothing of the passengers has been discovered despite the largest and most expensive search in aviation history.