SAINT-ANDRE, Reunion — A barnacle-encrusted wing part that washed up on a remote Indian Ocean island could help solve one of aviation’s greatest mysteries, as investigators work to connect it to the Malaysia Airlines flight that vanished more than a year ago.
The surprise discovery of the debris on a rocky beach stirred hopes and emotion among families of the missing, after a year and a half of grieving and frustration at a lack of answers, despite a wide, deep and expensive multinational search effort in the southern Indian Ocean, the China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.
Even if it is confirmed to be a long-awaited first clue to the disappearance of Flight 370, there’s no guarantee that investigators can still find the plane’s recorders or other remains a year and a half later.
The coming hours and days will be crucial. French authorities moved the plane piece from the beach to the local airport on Reunion and will send it next to the city of Toulouse, where it may arrive Saturday morning, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Toulouse is the hub of Europe’s aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus and a network of hangars and plane facilities. The plane part will be analyzed in special defense facilities used for airplane testing and analysis, according to the Defense Ministry.
Air safety investigators, including one from Boeing, have identified the component found on the French island of Reunion as a “flaperon” from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing, a U.S. official said. The official wasn’t authorized to be publicly named.
Flight 370, which disappeared March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, is the only 777 known to be missing. The unsuccessful search for the plane has raised concerns worldwide about whether airliners should be required to transmit their locations continually via satellite, especially when flying long distances over the ocean.
“It’s the first real evidence that there is a possibility that a part of the aircraft may have been found,” said Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss, whose country is leading the search for the plane in a remote patch of ocean far off Australia’s west coast.
“It’s too early to make that judgment, but clearly we are treating this as a major lead,” Truss said.
If it turns out to be part of the Malaysian plane, that could bolster the theory that the plane deviated from its path between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing and turned south into the Indian Ocean.
And it would put to rest speculation that it could have traveled north or landed somewhere after being hijacked.
The discovery has changed the life of Reunion environmental worker Johnny Begue. He told The Associated Press that he stumbled across the plane part Wednesday morning, while collecting stones to grind spices.
“I knew immediately it was part of an aircraft, but I didn’t realize how important it was, that it could help to solve the mystery of what happened to the Malaysian jet,” Begue, 46, said.
He said he called several of his workmates and they carried the wing fragment out of the water so that it would not be battered by the surf against the volcanic rocks that make up most of the beach.
Begue also discovered a piece of a suitcase less than three yards away, he said, although it’s unclear whether there is any link to the plane wing.
Authorities wouldn’t comment Thursday on whether Begue was the first to report discovering the component. Colleague Teddy Riviere corroborated his account, and praised him for the discovery. Members of Begue’s soccer team kidded him on his new fame in local media.
The wing piece is about 6 feet long. Investigators have found a number on the part, but it is not a serial or registration number, Truss said.
It could be a maintenance number, which may help investigators figure out what plane it belongs to, he said.
Malaysian authorities also are headed to Reunion and Toulouse.
