Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
WASHINGTON (AP) — It could be a major break in solving the mystery of what happened to a Malaysia Airlines airliner that vanished last March with 239 people aboard.
Air safety investigators have a "high degree of confidence" that aircraft debris found on an island in the western Indian Ocean is of a wing component unique to the Boeing 777. That's the same model as MH370. French law enforcement has traveled to Reunion and Malaysia has also dispatched investigators.
The debris apparently floated from the sea on the French island of Reunion. It's hundreds of miles east of Madagascar, which is off the coast of Africa. The remote island is about 4,000 miles from the airliner's last known radar point. It vanished while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. A massive multinational search effort of the southern Indian Ocean, the China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand turned up no trace of the plane.
Meanwhile, the head of the search effort led by Australia says the discovery is unlikely to alter the seabed search. Martin Dolan says confirmation that the debris came from Flight 370 would also finally disprove theories that the airliner disappeared somewhere in the northern hemisphere.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
