“I knew immediately it was part of an aircraft, but I didn’t realize how important it was, that it could help to solve the mystery of what happened to the Malaysian jet”, Begue, 46, said on Thursday.
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Remnants of a suitcase found Thursday on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, near where a fragment of an aircraft was located a day earlier.
The Australian government said Friday that search for missing flight MH370 will continue regardless of whether wreckage found on La Reunion Island came from the aircraft, while the debris is being transferred to France for examination. “Initial reports suggest that the debris is very likely to be from a Boeing 777, but we need to verify whether it is from flight MH370″, said Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
The MH370 disappeared in March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. Despite an global search, which has become the costliest in aviation history, no concrete clues have emerged that could provide long-awaited answers to the mystery of the plane’s disappearance.
Oceanographers say it is possible that currents could have swept the debris such a distance – though the piece, even if confirmed as part of MH370, is unlikely to help investigators figure out where the plane came down.
“If there is evidence that the aircraft has failed, that very well may trigger a wave of lawsuits from around the world, predominantly Malaysia and China”, he said.
French helicopters are still scouring the area around Reunion for more debris, and so far officials have found a discarded suitcase.
The families of the victims have had many false alarms before, and this time are demanding tangible proof before getting their hopes up. The French have a large hangar facility to study the debris, and they will be looking for maintenance numbers, serial numbers or a manufacturer’s tag to match it to the missing flight.
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.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It may be more than a week before investigators are able to determine that.
The wing component found on the French island of La Reunion bears the part number “657 BB”, according to photos of the debris. Drift modelling shows debris could’ve been pushed to the other side of the Indian Ocean.
Mr Knight’s story adds weight to widespread conviction that vast, rotating currents sweeping the southern Indian Ocean could have deposited wreckage from MH370 near Africa.
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An minister from Australia, which has been leading the hunt for the missing plane, said on Friday that he was confident the search for the missing plane was being conducted in the right area, Al Jazeera reported.
