A serial number on aircraft wreckage recovered on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion confirms it came from a Boeing 777, a Malaysian official said Friday, increasing the possibility that it came from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.
“From the part number, it is confirmed that it is from a Boeing 777 aircraft. This information is from MAS (Malaysia Airlines),” Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi told AFP.
The plane piece was found on Wednesday washed up on Reunion, which is a French overseas territory, an island about 600 km (370 miles) east of Madagascar.
The wing component bears the part number “657 BB”, according to photos of the debris.
The number corresponds to a code in the Boeing 777 manual identifying it as a flaperon and telling workers to place it on the right wing, according to a copy of a Boeing document that appeared on aviation websites.
Abdul Aziz’s remarks are the latest by officials involved in the hunt for MH370 to indicate the increasingly likelihood that the piece of wreckage came from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.
There is now hope that the part can soon be conclusively identified to solve the mystery of MH370, which vanished 16 months ago with 239 people aboard while on route from en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
‘Close to solving mystery’
The two-metre-long piece of wreckage has been sent for analysis to France, where it is due to arrive aboard an Air France flight on Saturday morning. The debris will then be delivered to a military unit near the southwest city of Toulouse specialised in analysing aviation wreckage.
Aeronautic experts will study deformation and damage to the debris to determine whether it was part of a plane that exploded in mid-air or came apart on impact with the ocean, gleaning valuable insights into the disaster. Establishing the final resting place of the plane, possibly thousands of kilometres away, would still be very difficult.
French officials said the analysis will begin on Wednesday.
Abdul Aziz said the most definitive confirmation of the part’s origin would have to come from Boeing, saying the aircraft manufacturer performed modifications to the flaperon that would make it easy to identify.
“I believe that we are moving close to solving the mystery of MH370. This could be the convincing evidence that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean,” he added.
Australia, which has led search efforts for the missing plane in a stretch of Indian Ocean around 3,700 km (2,300 miles) east of Reunion, said Friday it was possible the wreckage could have been carried to the French island by ocean currents.
“The fact that this wreckage was sighted on the northern part of the Réunion Island is consistent with the current movements,” said Transport and Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss.-AFP