Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Debris: More Suspected Wreckage Found on Reunion

More suspected wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has washed up on the northern shore of Indian Ocean island La Reunion, according to reports on Tuesday.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Debris: More Suspected Wreckage Found on Reunion
In this photo dated Wednesday, July 29, 2015, French police officers carry a piece of debris from a plane in Saint-Andre, Reunion Island. AP Photo/Lucas Marie, File
Jack Phillips
Updated:

More suspected wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has washed up on the northern shore of Indian Ocean island La Reunion, according to reports on Tuesday. But according to one Reunion police officer, “It might as well be from a sewing machine.”

Last week, a wing fragment, known as a flaperon, washed up in the same area. The fragment is from a Boeing 777, the same make as the Malaysian airliner that went missing in March 2014 with 239 people on board, according to the BBC. France has invited Malaysian and Australian aviation experts to Balma to take part in the investigation.

Local officials in Reunion have been sifting through reports of new debris found on Reunion, a French territory located off the east coast of Madagascar, as scavengers arrived on the beach looking for other plane parts, reported the Wall Street Journal.

A man, identified only as Bruno, apparently found a piece of plastic he believes came from a window frame on MH370. He found it while jogging on a path near the beach. The beach where he claims to have found the object is located a few hundred meters from the site where the wing fragment was found.

A policeman and a gendarme stand next to a piece of debris from an unidentified aircraft found in the coastal area of Saint-Andre de la Reunion, in the east of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, on July 29, 2015. (Yannick Pitou/AFP/Getty Images)
A policeman and a gendarme stand next to a piece of debris from an unidentified aircraft found in the coastal area of Saint-Andre de la Reunion, in the east of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, on July 29, 2015. Yannick Pitou/AFP/Getty Images

However, National Police Brigadier Gisele Cadar immediately cast doubt over whether the piece of plastic is connected to the missing plane.

“It might resemble the back of a plane window or rather the part where the masks fall but right now I can’t tell you anything,” Cadar said, according to the Stuff.co.nz news website. “It makes me smile a little because it might as well be from a sewing machine,” she told journalists.

A Radio Freedom reporter said Bruno was trying to sell mobile phone footage of the finding to CNN. Bruno then led three police officers and a dozen gathered journalists to the plastic item.

Cadar added, “The round bit makes me think of the back of a plane window or a sewing machine or the box in which they keep the safety items like the masks maybe.”

Dai Shuqin, 62, talks to reporters about her feelings after hearing about the recent discovery of plane debris that could be from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in Beijing on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Dai's sister Dai Shuling and her entire family of five members were onboard the passenger plane which disappeared on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Dai Shuqin, 62, talks to reporters about her feelings after hearing about the recent discovery of plane debris that could be from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in Beijing on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Dai's sister Dai Shuling and her entire family of five members were onboard the passenger plane which disappeared on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

MH370 is believed to have crashed somewhere in the Southern Indian Ocean, approximately 1,000 miles from Perth, Australia. In France, there’s hopes that a lab analysis of the discovered plane part could deliver information on the plane’s final moments before it crashed.

“Basically it’s going to confirm the airplane is in the water and what attitude the airplane was at when it struck the water,” John Goglia, former member of the National Transportation Safety Board told Popular Mechanics of the process. “It does look like it was torn off in flight.”

Having been part of similar exercises, Goglia said the actual examination will involve a few different technologies.

“They will do a detailed inspection, with an X-ray and a scan of it,” he told the publication. “Above all, they need to identify the part and confirm it is from the 777.” Goglia added: “They'll do everything humanly possible (to confirm it) before they would take it apart and possibly destroy the piece.”

Jack Phillips
Jack Phillips
Breaking News Reporter
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter who covers a range of topics, including politics, U.S., and health news. A father of two, Jack grew up in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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