Technical experts in France will on Wednesday begin examining a plane part that almost certainly belonged to missing flight MH370, raising hopes that some light may finally be shed on one of aviation's darkest mysteries.
The Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared on March last year when it inexplicably veered off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, and a colossal multinational hunt for the aircraft proved fruitless.
Last week’s discovery of a two-metre-long wing part called a flaperon on the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion raised fresh hopes for relatives desperate for answers.
The piece – which has been confirmed as part of a Boeing 777 – has been taken to the south-western French city of Toulouse, where it will undergo the high-profile examination.
The only missing Boeing 777 in the world is flight MH370. It is also thought to be the only 777 ever to have crashed in the southern hemisphere.
A French source close to the case said it would be opened early on Wednesday afternoon, in the presence of French and Malaysian experts, Boeing employees and representatives from China – the country that lost the most passengers.
Australia, which is heading the seabed search for the missing aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean, said official word on whether the part is from flight MH370 is expected this week.
"Malaysian and French officials may be in a position to make a formal statement about the origin of the flaperon later this week," said Australian deputy prime minister Warren Truss.
He added that an expert from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is coordinating the search, would be involved in examining the wing part.
On Wednesday, the ATSB admitted that initial debris drift modelling undertaken in June 2014 had mistakenly indicated that the first possible landfall of debris would be on the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, in the first weeks of July 2014.
Models run by Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, in November last year and updated last month found, however, that an Indonesia landfall was highly unlikely.
The mistake did not affect the extensive international surface search for the missing plane off the west coast of Australia, ATSB said. That search was called off in April, more than a month after the plane went down.
Truss said CSIRO had confirmed that drift modelling showed debris could have been carried by wind and currents to Réunion, 4,000km (2,500 miles) from the region where MH370 was thought to have gone down.
“For this reason, thorough and methodical search efforts will continue to be focused on the defined underwater search area, covering 120,000 square kilometres, in the southern Indian Ocean,” he said.
Jean-Paul Troadec, the former head of France’s BEA agency, which investigates air accidents, said the analysis would focus on two issues: whether the flaperon belongs to MH370 and if so, whether it can shed light on the final moments of the plane.
He said the paint on the piece was a key element of the investigation. “Every airline paints their planes in a certain way … and if the paint used is used by Malaysia Airlines and other companies, there may be more certainty,” he said.
Troadec said experts would also examine the way the part detached itself from the wing. “Was it in a violent impact with the sea or not?” he said. “This piece looks like it is in good condition; it doesn’t look like the part of a plane that fell vertically in the water at 900km/h.”
Ships have been scouring more than 50,000 square kilometres (19,000 square miles) of deep ocean floor for evidence of the missing aircraft. Authorities plan to search a total of 120,000 square metres.
Michael Smart, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Queensland, said there was some reason for hope in the search. "If one piece turns up, perhaps there's a likelihood that others will as well," he said. "It's strange to think you'd find one part that floated and nothing else."
Guardian Services