Possible MH370 piece may confirm search area

On Friday, Australia's transport minister said the discovery of a piece of an airplane wing on Reunion Island would indicate that the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is on the right track.

"We remain confident that we're searching in the right place, and if in fact the plane parts found on Reunion Island are linked to MH370, that would rather strengthen the case that we are in the right area," said Warren Truss.

MH370 vanished without a trace in March, 2014 with 239 people on board. The last primary radar contact placed the aircraft over the Andaman Sea, around 370 kilometers (230 miles) northwest of the Malaysia's Penang. The 2-meter (6-foot) section of a wing was discovered on Reunion Island is around 5,600 kilometers (2,600 miles) away from Penang and more than 5,500 kilometers (3,500 miles) away from the current international search area.

"The fact that this wreckage was sighted on the northern part of the Reunion Island is consistent with the current movements" that would come from the search area, Truss added.

Potential crash theory confirmation

If the wing piece – a part known as a flaperon – is proven to belong to MH370, Truss also said it would put to rest some of the speculation about what happened to the plane and confirm "really beyond any doubt that the aircraft is resting in the Indian Ocean and not secretly parked in some hidden place on the land in another part of the world."

After the piece washed up on the beach in Reunion, investigators descended on the island to collect the piece and prepare it for transport back to Toulouse, France for further investigation. Truss said "there is strong evidence" to suggest the part came from a Boeing 777 aircraft, and officials will be looking for clues (such as a part serial number) that would confirm the flaperon came from MH370 (a 777) that went missing in 2014.

"We have had many false alarms before, but for the sake of the families who have lost loved ones, and suffered such heartbreaking uncertainty, I pray that we will find out the truth so that they may have closure and peace," Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement Friday.

Skepticism remains

Families of the victims, many of whom have been unhappy with how the investigation has been handled and their treatment from Malaysian Airlines, are skeptical of the potential clues into the plane's disappearance that could come from the wing section.

"It has been more than one year, and now they claim to have found debris of MH370 on an island?" Dai Shuqin, a woman whose sister and five other relatives were on the plane, told the Associated Press. "We don't accept this. We do not believe what they claim. The finding does not constitute anything."

The man who claims to have found the debris on the beach, Johnny Begue, has said he also saw a suitcase washed up nearby when he and his beach debris work crew came upon the wing piece.

However, authorities consider it unlikely that it may also come from MH370 given the relatively good condition of the suitcase.

mz/jil (AP, dpa, AFP)