Updated: July 29, 2015, 6:08 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official says air safety investigators have a “high degree of confidence” that a photo of aircraft debris found in the Indian Ocean is of a wing component unique to the Boeing 777, the same model as the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared last year.
The official says investigators — including a Boeing air safety investigator — have identified the component as a “flaperon” from the trailing edge of a 777 wing.
A French official close to the investigation confirmed Wednesday that French law enforcement is on site to examine a piece of airplane wing found on the French island of Reunion, in the western Indian Ocean. The U.S. and French officials spoke on condition that they not be named because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.
At the United Nations, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters that he has sent a team to verify the identity of the plane wreckage.
“Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can ever confirm that it is belonged to MH370,” he said. “So we dispatched a team to investigate on this issue.”
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Probably from the New York Times pool of usual anonymous government sources.
FYI - La Réunion island is featured in ‘The Mauritius Command’, 4th novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O"Brian…
This still won’t satisfy the conspiracy nuts. They will say the wing was “planted there”, and that the jet is really in Asia being readied for an attack on the US by a Middle Eastern country, or I guess the other popular nut job theory is that it went to Diego Garcia and the US is going to use it for a “False Flag” attack on the US (of course with help from the Mossad)…
…because of course neither Muslim countries nor the US/Israel have access to a 777, they needed to hijack one instead…
Chances of a 777 wing being found there are slim. Plus the location actually matches currents in that area vs original search area vs elapsed time. But all that means is they still have to find the plane…in an ocean that is huge, and in one of the deepest parts, well beyond modern technology to do efficiently at this point. It could be a very long time before the actual plane is found, if ever. Hey, they could get lucky too, this was a stroke of luck. Other debris may have washed ashore, just in remote areas.
Can’t call this good news but it is a relief. Finding absolutely no debris was creepy and odd. Don’t care how big the ocean is or how full of trash it is there had to be debris. Figured by this time it would have washed up in Chile or even Southwest Africa but at least it’s a clue.