The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may have taken a turn as plane debris that surfaced in the Indian Ocean was discovered.
CNN reports that debris found from what appears to be a commercial airliner was found off the coast of St. Andre on Reunion Island in western India. It’s about 380 nautical miles off the coast of Madagascar.
The wreckage is being examined to determine if has to do with missing Flight MH370, a member of the French Air Force in Reunion said Wednesday.
Adjutant Christian Retournat says it’s too soon to make any assumptions on the plane wreckage that’s possibly the first real piece of evidence that leads to what happened to the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines flight that went missing on March 8, 2014. The large plane disappeared after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and heading for Beijing with 239 people aboard.
Retounat is telling people to wait for investigators to learn more about the wreckage found in the Indian Ocean.
“It is way too soon to say whether or not it is MH370. We just found the debris this morning.”
Retounat says the debris appears to be a wing flap. India Today reports that the plane part has collected a lot of seashells, which is a sign that it’s been in the water for some time.
Employees of a company that keeps the beach clean and maintained is who discovered what might be MH370 wreckage.
According to the report, aviation safety expert and a former French military pilot, Xavier Tytelman, says that the size and shape do not match that of a modern airliner. He’s not completely ruling out the track of an Airbus or a Boeing, the report states.
Wired reports that the plane wreckage is about 4,000 miles from where the Malaysia Airlines flight was last seen, which was at the southern tip of Vietnam.
The report cites an article from The Telegraph in which Tytelman says the wing flap looks like it could be from the missing Boeing 777 because it appears to have spent at least a year in the ocean.
“We all think it is likely that the wing is that of a Boeing 777 – the same plane as MH370.”
Is the wing flap the first piece of real evidence in finding Flight MH370? So many unanswered questions… and not knowing what happened to the passengers has taken a huge toll on their loved ones. They want answers more than anyone and hope one day to get them.
[Photos via @AdrianNCF/Twitter]