The piece of plane wing confirmed to be from MH370 has company. In addition to a suitcase, Malaysia's transportation minister says "many items," including seat cushions, aluminum foil, and a window, have washed up on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, but experts have yet to prove the items are from the vanished jet, reports Deutsche Welle. "I can only ascertain that it's plane debris," he says. Malaysia yesterday confirmed the wing part, or flaperon, belonged to MH370 based on its paint color and a seal matching a maintenance record, reports Reuters. French experts who are continuing to study the flaperon, however, say there is simply a "very strong supposition" that it came from MH370. Malaysia has now asked neighboring areas, including Mauritius and Madagascar, to search for potential debris.
Rather than bring closure, the find has incensed some Chinese relatives of those on board the Boeing 777 who streamed to the Beijing headquarters of Malaysia Airlines today, the Guardian reports. One woman says Prime Minister Najib Razak, who broke the news, was speaking "nonsense. I just want to kill him." "I don't believe it," says another, adding 515 days is "enough time for them to have produced fake debris." The Australian agency leading the search for MH370 says it will continue to focus on 46,000 square miles of seabed west of Australia, noting the debris is consistent with a crash site in that area. What's next for the flaperon? Investigators will likely analyze thin pieces under a microscope to see how it was broken, then "open it up to see if there's any internal damage," an expert says. The study could take "a month or months." (More MH370 stories.)
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