KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 ― The debris that washed up on the Réunion Island likely belongs to a light twin-engine plane instead of a Boeing 777 jumbo jetliner, a French aviation security expert and criminologist said.
Amid hope that the flaperon could be from missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370, Christophe Naudin said it might instead be linked to a previous crash involving a Piper plane in 2006.
“From the first photographs that I could analyse, which themselves were not very good, made me think of a piece from left wing of a light aircraft,” Naudin told Réunion-based news agency L'info à La Réunion.
“I am unable to say what type of plane that this may correspond to. But it could be a light twin-engine, I would not be surprised.”
It is unsure which 2006 crash Naudin was referring to.
Naudin also pointed out that the string “BB 670” found on the wreckage also did not match any aviation registration.
“Registrations have extremely familiar forms and are codified by one of the annexes of the International Organization of Civil Aviation and this does not correspond at all to this, unless it was a military plane, but it's too small for it to be the case,” added Naudin.
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said yesterday Malaysia has sent a team to Réunion Island off the east coast of Africa to determine whether washed-up debris may be from the missing MH370 that is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean last year.
Eric Chesneau, an officer in the air transport police of the French Indian Ocean territory Réunion, told news agency Reuters that it was “more than likely plane debris” that had washed up, but further inspection was needed.
The Australian government, however, said that if the debris was really from MH370, the finding would be “consistent” with analysis and modeling of the missing plane’s trajectory
Flight MH370 went missing with 239 people on board while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 last year.
