It’s just after 2am in Réunion, an island off of Madagascar where a piece of plane debris has been found – possibly an important breakthrough in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 – which disappeared in March 2014. We’re closing down this live blog, but check back here for continued coverage.
US media is reporting that a suitcase found off Réunion island is now a part of the debris probe, but is attributing that information to anonymous sources. While officials have been clear that it is “very likely” that the airplane wing piece is from a Boeing 777, there are far fewer certainties that a destroyed piece of luggage is from a specific aircraft.
Air crash investigators will examine the suitcase, which Australia deputy prime minister Warren Truss said was given to police on Réunion.
“It may just be rubbish and there is no attached marine life to indicate that it’s been in the water for any great time, but it will be examined,” Truss told AAP in a statement.
NBCNews has said that the identification number found on the plane debris is definitely from a Boeing 777. Earlier on Thursday, Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak said it was “very likely” that the debris was from that model of a plane.
There is only one Boeing 777 unaccounted for in the world – Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 – but investigators have not said whether this debris is from that flight.
Gillian Parker is reporting for The Guardian from Réunion, which has suddenly been thrust into the international spotlight as investigators and media descend on the island to learn more about a piece of plane debris possibly connected to the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.
“Our newspapers only ever write about car crashes, volcano eruptions and shark attacks,” says restaurant manager Guillaune Lalot. “So maybe, this discovery will draw a different type of attention to the island.”
A shroud of mist cloaks the island’s monolithic volcanic hills, which are blanketed with emerald forests and rushing waterfalls. The residents of Réunion, a volcanic island around 370 miles east of Madagascar, seem relieved that attention may be diverted from the rash of shark attacks that have beleaguered the island’s prime locations in recent years. Only a week ago, a shark savagely bit a surfer causing him to lose his right arm.
“What could potentially see the end of a tragic incident is shining a spotlight on a relatively unknown paradise,” says textile worker, Audrey Gunther.
Residents in Réunion are hoping their remote island can play a part in unravelling a mystery that has left the relatives of the ill-fated passengers of MH370 without the answers they so desperately crave.
“I hope it will give the families some peace and ease their pain some,” says Sonia Angama, a waitress, “plus, you know, it will put this island on the map.”
A spokeswoman from Paris prosecutor’s office, Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, told the AP that the flight containing the plane debris may leave Réunion on Friday and arrive in Toulouse on Saturday. The debris is at the Réunion airport and under French judicial authority, according to French officials.
Because Réunion is a French territory, the country is leading the investigation of the debris and cooperating with international officials. France has been actively involved in the investigation into the missing plane because four of its citizens were among the 239 people onboard.
Réunion island falls outside the MH370 search zone investigators have been focusing on in the past 15 months.
Martin Dolan, the chief commissioner of the Australian team coordinating the search, said the finding in Réunion “doesn’t rule out our current search area”.
The Guardian’s Gwyn Topham, Matthew Weaver and Julien Delarue with more on the debris analysis:
Otherwise, the debris itself, even if confirmed to have come from flight MH370, is unlikely to shed immediate light on the ultimate cause of aviation’s greatest mystery. But it would provide tangible evidence that the 777 did end its days in the Indian Ocean, confirming the hypothesis developed from an unprecedented analysis of satellite signals. To those conducting painstaking, difficult sea search, whose cost and likely success has been queried in some quarters, that evidence should deliver renewed purpose.
Though many officials and experts are confident that the debris is from a Boeing 777, the latest finding has done little to soothe the relatives of passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The flight went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China in March 2014 and investigators have been searching the Indian Ocean for traces of the missing Boeing 777.
Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak said it is too early to speculate on whether the debris is from MH370 and results from the examination in Toulouse are expected in the next two days.
“We’ve been through this many times,” Narendran told CBS. “I think it has really not helped us to either keep expectations high or to, in a sense, hope for some quick answers.”
Najib too, expressed caution, in his statement about the discovery.
“As soon as we have more information or any verification we will make it public,” Najib said. “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.”
A volcanic eruption is “probable and imminent” on France’s Réunion island, where the plane debris was found. OVPF, the island’s volcanic observatory, detected a spike in seismic activity at Le Piton de la Fournaise, one of the most active volcanoes in the world.
The volcano has erupted twice this year and has been evacuated. It is on the eastern part of the island, south of Saint-André, where the plane debris was located. It is unclear how the imminent eruption could affect the investigation - though such evacuations are common on the island.
This is Amanda Holpuch in New York, taking over the live blog as investigators examine what could be the first major breakthrough in the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. The discovery of plane debris on an island could be tied to the only unaccounted Boeing 777 in the world, which went missing on 8 March 2014.
Relatives of passengers who were on-board Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 react to news on Thursday that debris has been discovered that could be from the missing plane. A wing part was found washed up on Réunion Island in the western Indian Ocean. Families of MH370’s 239 passengers have been in an agonising limbo since it disappeared on 8 March in 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing Guardian
We’re going to pause the live blog for now, but we’ll resume again when there’s more news about the debris.
Johnny Bègue was aware debris he found on the shore could have come from a plane, but no idea it could be wreckage from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, writes Julien Delarue in Saint-Denis Réunion.
In Saint-André, a town on the east of the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion, Johnny Bègue and his team of eight charged with keeping the local coastline clean had begun work at 7am as usual on Wednesday morning. Bègue, a local islander who for three years had headed the team responsible for maintaining the green spaces, had a morning break just before 9am and took the chance to look along the coast for a stone to use as a pestle.
“At around 8.45am, I was walking the shoreline looking for a kalou – a stone which can be used as a pestle for grinding spices,” he said. “That was when I saw some debris washed up on the pebbles. Straight away I called over my colleagues to help me pick up the piece and place it higher up the shore.”
He said that as soon as he saw the strange piece of debris he knew it must have come from a plane. “I immediately thought it was plane debris – the length and curve of it, there were screws on it that hadn’t gone rusty.”
Here’s a summary of the latest developments in what is looking like the first major breakthrough in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 almost 17 months since it went missing with 239 people on board.
Dr David Ferreira, an oceanographer at the University of Reading, said it is “perfectly possible” that the aircraft debris drifted thousands of miles from the search area off the Australia coast to Réunion.
In an email to the Guardian he said:
“To have reached Réunion from the main search area west of Australia, the piece of debris would have travelled around 3-4,000 km in the 16 months since the crash. This is on the fast side of the range of possibilities, but is still perfectly possible.
“The Indian Ocean has two dominant currents – one to the south of the suspected crash zone, which travels west to east, and one to the north, which travels east to west. If the piece of suspected wreckage found on Réunion did come from MH370, it is possible that it could have initially floated north from the crash zone, before being caught in the strong current close the equator travelling west.
“On its own, this piece of debris will not do much to narrow down the search area by very much. Put bluntly, over a 16 months period, the debris could have travelled from nearly anywhere in the Indian Ocean to Réunion. That said, some points of origin are more likely than others, and the debris found on Réunion could at least provide evidence that the search operation is in the right kind of area. Combined with other evidence, this may allow investigators to focus on a narrower patch of the ocean floor as they continue their search for more wreckage.”
Last year Ferreira produced a simulations of particle trajectories in the Southern Indian Ocean illustrating the possible fate of debris from the missing MH370 flight.
Here’s the 260-page manual showing the serial numbers to the numerous parts of the Boeing 777. It includes this diagram of a flaperon with the part number 657BB said to have been seen on the debris washed up on Réunion.
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