More Plane Debris Found On Reunion Island

Searchers on Reunion Island have found additional pieces of debris that resemble airplane parts, which will be tested to see if they came from missing Malaysia Airlines’ Flight 370, Malaysia’s transport minister said. “I can only ascertain that it’s plane debris“.

He said there are “many other technical details that I do not have to reveal” but that confirm the part is from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The announcement by Malaysian authorities that the aeroplane part found in Reunion Island came from MH370 has drawn a mixed reaction from relatives of passengers and airforce. “I can not confirm that it’s from MH370”.

Publicly, Australian officials are withholding criticism of Najib’s announcement, with Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss saying Malaysia, as the government in charge of the investigation, had the right to make that call.

About a dozen Chinese passenger relatives protested outside Malaysia Airlines offices in Beijing the way Malaysian authorities handled the announcement linking the plane debris to MH370.

“I would like to assure all those affected by this tragedy that the government of Malaysia is committed to do everything within our means to find out the truth of what happened”, he said.

“Malaysia must get more detailed information related to the discovery of the flaperon…”

Still, it doesn’t pinpoint where the aircraft took its fatal plunge in March 2014 – or why it strayed so far from its intended Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.

“Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you that an worldwide team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370“, Najib said.

Despite the Malaysian confirmation, prosecutors in France stopped short of declaring they were certain, saying only that there was a “very strong presumption”.

“The experts are carrying out their work promptly in order to provide complete and reliable information as soon as possible to the victims’ families”, Mackowiak said.

The caution was typical of how France carries out air crash investigations. During the inquiries, they only rarely offer interim assessments and even more rarely comment.

“Of course there is still some i’s not dotted and t’s not crossed”.

Privately, however, there were questions about why Najib had moved forward with the statement before all officials had agreed.

The families of those on board say they are angry, frustrated and bewildered by what they’ve been told.

“Why the hell do you have one confirm and one not?” asked Sara Weeks of Christchurch, New Zealand, whose brother Paul Weeks was on board the flight.

Families in Malaysia and Australia expressed similar sentiments.

“He’s under so much political pressure at the moment”, Tapsell said.

“The appearance of at least some wreckage takes it out of the realm of ‘vanished without a trace, cue the music, ‘ with ‘OK, sure, it did go down in the ocean, ‘” said Ric Gillespie, a former U.S. aviation accident investigator who wrote a book about Earhart’s still-unsolved 1937 disappearance over the Pacific Ocean.

He said that while it is crucial to understand and respect the feelings and pain of the families, the search for other or remaining debris must be continued to seek answers to what happened to the flight.

“Our search area has always been defined based on analysis of the satellite communications, and so accordingly this will not lead to any changes”, Daniel O’Malley, a spokesman for the bureau, said by phone from Canberra.

“We need the help of the population too”, he said.

Teams have been combing the beaches of Reunion since last week’s flaperon find in hopes of finding more clues about the missing jet.

Analysts say investigators will examine the metal with high-powered microscopes to gain insight into what caused the plane to go down. But it can not explain how the plane crashed or why its electronic trackers appeared to be deliberately switched off. Nor will it help the search for the plane.

It is not known why Flight 370 – less than an hour into its journey – turned back from its original flight path and headed in an opposite direction before turning left and flying south over the Indian Ocean for hours. Experts believe that the debris might have reached there through ocean currents. Many relatives expressed frustration that Najib spoke more unequivocally than authorities in France, the U.S. and Australia who identified the part as from a 777.