but in the end, no one from the embassy showed up to meet with them. and another day ends with no new answers. at a news conference today, one official said the debris recovered in recent days is not as obvious as the flaperon and would require much more complex analysis. pamela brown, thanks so much. i want to bring in our aviation analyst, miles o brien, and peter goelz, a former ntsb managing director. if, peter, you were operating this search, what level of confidence would you have that you re going to find more debris? i would have not a lot of confidence. really. to be honest. i think we were quite lucky and it was extraordinary that we found the lap flaperon and it appears to be from flight 370. but boy, finding another piece is going to be extraordinary. finding another piece would be extraordinary. it s kind of unbelievable. i think people might think,
answers of why this happened can only be determined on the ground. cnn, los angeles. and we ve more on the debris found on the coast of reunion island. meteorologist derek van dam joins us with more. derek, is it even feasible that mh370 debris could have traveled this far across the indian ocean? lynda, it is a reasonable question indeed. in fact we have to dig deep into this flaperon piece that they purportedly found, belonging to mh370. it is a device on the airplane that is highly buoyant. i researched this. we know this thing will float. when it enters the ocean currents known as a gyre it will allow the debris it travel
actually want to see the piece with their own eyes. they want to draw those conclusions when they see the evidence in person this piece of debris. no one wants it make a mistake here. there is no margin for error. they want to be a hundred percent certain on this. there is another aspect determining whether or not it came from mh370, but could this flaperon actually shed light, actually provide other clues about what may have happened on board the flight. we ve had different experts begin to weigh in. one from the independent group, the one that helped australia refine their search area. a gentleman by the name of michael exner, saying the damage pattern is clear. the damage is on the back half and not on the front. what he believes that means is that it somehow came off of the plane while it was still in flight. all of this important and matters because it could help
we need to be sure of the facts. and let me just quickly run you through what we know about this flaperon this piece of debris found on reunion island. we know there is marking on it a spence ill that says 657 bb. we ne that is a an apparent match for the schematics on the part of the right wing for a boeing triple 7. there is a missing number plate that appears to not be on that piece. we have seen newer versions of the flaperon that have the number on the plate. there are barnacles consistent with something that s been in the water 16 months. another point made by investigators, there are no other missing triple 7s. no pieces like this reported missing and linda, on top of all of that there is confidence that this is consistent with this debris washing up on reunion island that is consistent with the current search area, the ocean currents
yeah or sat over time, like in the ocean, and came off. we saw serial numbers on the flaperon what will that help with? it is a whole assembly. it is possible there is a lot of serial numbers, part numbers even for individual pieces or it could refer to all, you know larger assembly such as the plap flaperon. and authorities ascending the debris from that plane to france for closer inspection. the families of those on board mh370 are reacting cautiously to the latest developments. cnn s christie joins us with more on that. christie with be tho doubt a trying time for the families who are missing loved ones. what are they saying to you about this latest development? reporter: they are sayinging that it is a very trying time. it is a long and agonizing wait for the families of the passengers on board missing malaysian airlines flight mh370.