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Airplane debris raises MH370 families' hopes, without resolution

SYDNEY — Ever since a part from a Boeing 777 was found on Reunion island last week, Ms Grace Subithirai Nathan has been exchanging online messages through the night with loved ones of those on board Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

People walk on the beach where a large piece of plane debris was found on Wednesday in Saint-Andre, on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, Aug 1, 2015. Photo: Reuters

People walk on the beach where a large piece of plane debris was found on Wednesday in Saint-Andre, on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, Aug 1, 2015. Photo: Reuters

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SYDNEY — Ever since a part from a Boeing 777 was found on Reunion island last week, Ms Grace Subithirai Nathan has been exchanging online messages through the night with loved ones of those on board Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

“Everybody is really anxious. No one is sleeping,” Ms Nathan, whose mother was on board the plane that disappeared in March 2014, said by phone from Kuala Lumpur. “Before this, a lot of us thought it would be good to find something and have closure. But we would rather they’re still alive somewhere.”

The week-long wait for testing that can determine whether the Boeing 777 part came from Flight 370 is prolonging the uncertainty for friends and relatives of the disappeared. In nearly 17 months since the plane vanished with 239 people on board, no physical remnants of the aircraft have been identified.

“Finding what appears to be a part of the plane raises the level of hope for families, but it doesn’t solve the problem,” said Dr Geoffrey Glassock, a psychologist who has counselled people bereaved in the 2002 Bali bombings and 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

More information about what happened “gives them a structure to understand their grief, but it doesn’t take away the pain of their loss”, he said by phone from Springwood, near Sydney. “You’re never going to remove that.”

FRENCH LAB

The part known as a flaperon, found on the French island of Reunion close to Madagascar in the western Indian Ocean, will be examined by Wednesday (Aug 5) in the same lab that scoured fragments of an Air France jet that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009. A suitcase discovered near the debris also will be studied, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Friday.

Hopes were raised yesterday when another object, initially believed to be an air plane door, was found on Reunion. However, authorities later said the piece was just a ladder, not a plane part.

Malaysia’s civil aviation department said yesterday it is reaching out to other aviation authorities in territories near Reunion, seeking their aid in analysing any additional debris that washes ashore.

Mr Wen Wancheng, whose son was on board Flight 370, is planning to travel to Reunion from his home in Shandong province south of Beijing to join the search.

“The wing debris found on the island is only a small part of the plane, and there must be more, larger parts to be found,” he said via online message. “I’m ready for the trip.”

SEEKING A LINK

Boeing has dispatched a team of technical experts who are assisting in the multinational effort at the request of investigators, the plane-maker said on Friday.

A part number on the flaperon enabled investigators to determine that it came from a 777, the same model as the missing plane. Since the number is used for all Boeing 777s, it is not proof that the flap ruptured from MH370. However, only five 777s have suffered irreparable damage since the model was introduced in 1993, according to Aviation Safety, an online accident database, and none of the others occurred in the Indian Ocean.

For a definitive link to the Malaysian plane, investigators would look for other proof on sub-components, including inspection stamps and serial numbers on pieces in the flap assembly, according to Mr John Purvis, who used to lead Boeing’s accident investigations unit.

“While this is a promising development, I’m not sure that in terms of the grieving process this makes it any easier or helps people along,” Mr Christopher Hall, Chief Executive Officer of the Melbourne-based Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement, said by phone. “There’s no closure on this experience. As more is known, each answer just poses more questions.”

SEARCH MOMENTUM

Flight 370 was en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in March 2014 when it vanished without a trace. By analysing satellite signals, investigators concluded that the jet turned back over the Indian Ocean and probably plunged into the sea off Australia’s western coast.

The wreckage that washed ashore in Reunion is the strongest clue yet in a search that is now the longest ever for a missing commercial jet. Ships using deep-sea sonar have already scanned more than 55,000 sq km of the seabed south-west of Australia.

If the lab analysis proves the piece is from Flight 370, it will not pinpoint the plane’s resting place. But it could give fresh momentum to search efforts in a remote stretch of ocean some 3,800km south-east of Reunion.

“The most important part of this whole exercise at the moment is to give some kind of closure to the families who have loved ones who perished on the aircraft,” Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, whose government has led the seafloor search, said at a media conference in Canberra on July 31. “It’s important for them to have some positive indication about what may have happened to their loved ones.” BLOOMBERG

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