authorities know the plane veered off course. but don t know why the boeing 777 with 239 people on board made a dramatic turn over the sea and don t know where the plane s journey ended. using satellite data search officials calculated it went down in the southern indian ocean and most recently have been combing an area of the ocean floor 1,000 miles of perth australia, 700 miles from where the debris was found. now investigators and scientists are calculatinging if pieces of the plane could have drifted that fwaur. experts stress other planes have crashed in the area and this piece could be from one of them. contacted by cnn, boeing would only say it is continuing to provide technical expertise to the search teams. brian todd, cnn, washington.
it would be part of mh-370. the number of triple sevens that crashed in this area are minuscule at best. one says it is too soon to say if it is part of the missing plane. many have serial numbers attached to the parts which are riveted on to that part. a look to see if it traces back to a boeing plane or any other type of plane. plight 370 disappeared after taking off on march 8th 2014 bound for beijing but never made it, vanishing without a trace. sparking an international search that continues to captivate the world.
judgment. we are treating this as a major lead. and get assurance about what is found. and what is linked to the disappearance of mh370. just to put this in context. reunion island is near madagascar. that is a very long way from the area where search crews were looking for the missing jet lean liner. it vanished march last year from a flight from kuala lumpur to beijing with 239 on board. cnn s robyn kreal arrived at reunion island. i understand you literally just got there. bring us up to speed. what s the latest from the ground and how exactly did this piece of debris turn up? well the piece of debris was picked up by initially, by the, sighted by locals then the police were brought in and seen
is not inconsistent with the search search zone. 2500 miles away. the distance from new york to los angeles. the drift modeling and i think we have a graphic from a local professor in perth we can show you, it is consistent with a piece of debris making its way from the potential search zone in the blue area and up and around across the indian ocean in to the red area. they are cautioning this is one of the possibilities but the chief of the transport investigation agency says it is not inconsistent with where they are looking right now. it is possible that debris the flaperon could have ended up there. this is a complicated investigation. this is an american plane, a boeing plane. the debris was found in french waters. the australians have said they will be the ones to examine the black boxes. what is the role of malaysia in
the flaperons, this piece of debris that was found, the flaperon a combination of the flaps and the alerons that are used to turn the plane and take off and landing, does that tell us anything of what could have happened here? it can. obviously if you have the flaps extended if they are down it gives a greater surface area and more lift. it is important in landing. you have to put the flaps down and for take off you have to have them set in a certain area too. clearly the plane wasn t taking off. some might suggest if this flap was down that perhaps the plane was in some sort of a landing configuration or trying to get extra lift or thought they would have to make a water landing or the complete opposite. that the plane was on auto pilot and no one was controlling it and it was part of a stall. in other words, the plane had lost the speed that it needed to go forward and it was spiraling down and turning.