Reunion island debris ‘same model as MH370’

AIRPLANE debris that washed up on a beach on the French island of Reunion is from the same aircraft model as the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Police officers inspect metallic debris found on a beach in Saint-Denis on the French Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, close to where where a Boeing 777 wing part believed to belong to missing flight MH370 washed up last week. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said tests in France had made this link with a recently-discovered flaperon from an airplane wing. It came amid reports that a plane door is now the second suspected piece of MH370 debris to be found on the Indian Ocean island.

He tweeted: “The flaperon is officially identified as being part of a Boeing 777. This is verified by French authorities together with manufacturer Boeing,

“If more debris can be found it will aid the experts in the substantive analysis of what happened to the missing plane MH370.”

He also noted that Malaysia is reaching out to several aviation authorities in territories within the vicinity of Reunion Island to help with the search for debris.

Flight MH370 was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 when it vanished with 239 people on board.

Aviation experts at a military base near Toulouse, France, have been trying to establish whether the wreckage which was found on Reunion is from the doomed flight.

The new debris was found just south of the city of St Denis.

Flaperons are control surfaces on the wing of an aircraft that help to stabilise the plane during low-speed flying during take-off and landing.