MALAYSIA-AIRLINES/TRANSPORT MINISTER Malaysia says Indian Ocean airplane debris is part of a Boeing 777

Record ID: 145235

  • Title: MALAYSIA-AIRLINES/TRANSPORT MINISTER Malaysia says Indian Ocean airplane debris is part of a Boeing 777
  • Date: 3rd August 2015
  • Summary: KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA (AUGUST 3, 2015) (REUTERS) MALAYSIAN TRANSPORT MINISTER LIOW TIONG LAI SITTING CAMERAMEN JOURNALISTS SITTING DURING NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) MALAYSIAN TRANSPORT MINISTER LIOW TIONG LAI SAYING: "The wreckage found earlier is confirmed to be the flaperon from a Boeing triple seven. It's a Boeing triple seven part but whether it is MH370 pa
  • Embargoed: 18th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Malaysia
  • Country: Malaysia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA9UERRYZ600JDRUMCD0OFUY2V5
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Malaysian Transportation Minister Liow Tiong Lai on Monday (August 3) said that the airplane part found on Reunion Island was a part of the wing known as the flaperon and was from of a Boeing 777 aircraft, the same model as Flight MH370.
    Experts hope that the debris that washed ashore on the island east of Madagascar on July 29 will provide clues to the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board.
    "The wreckage found earlier is confirmed to be the flaperon from a Boeing triple seven. It's a Boeing triple seven part but whether it is MH370 part yet to be verified. I want to emphasise that is yet to verified and the verification will be done only on Wednesday," said Liow Tiong Lai.
    The barnacle-covered plane part was flown to Paris on Saturday (August 1) and was taken to Toulouse to undergo more detailed analysis.
    Liow also confirmed that the search team in Reunion Island has found more debris.
    "So this is so far that I can confirm that we do find additional debris but we do not able to confirm at this point whether it is from MH370," he said.
    Authorities say that counter-clockwise near-surface circulation in the southern Indian Ocean may have carried the debris northward toward the equator. Debris could then join the South Equatorial current moving westward toward the Mozambique current near Réunion island.
    If the debris indeed does belong to MH370, numerical ocean circulation models could be able to retrace the origin of the crash site and could suggest new regions of the ocean to focus on.
    "At the moment because the priority search area is still around that area until we confirm and verify the result of the wreckage. Because as you know now it's not verified yet, it only confirmed to be the Boeing triple seven what we call wreckage but it cannot be confirmed as whether it's 370 or not. So we have to be very, very careful in this instance," he said.
    Reunion is roughly 3,700 km (2,300 miles) from the broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia where search efforts have focused, but officials and experts said currents could have carried wreckage that way, thousands of kilometres from where the plane is thought to have crashed.
    MH370 is believed to be the only 777 to have crashed south of the equator since the model came into service 20 years ago.
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