MH370 search: What you need to know

A jetliner fragment has turned up on Réunion Island’s shores, which may help solve the 17-month mystery of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.

|
Jacky Naegelen/Reuters
An airplane flies over the Jamaique beach in Saint-Denis on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, August 3, 2015.

A piece of airplane debris believed to be from a Boeing 777 was found by beach cleaners last week, giving hope to official investigators looking to solve the mystery of the Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared without a trace in March 2014.

As the investigation continues, here are five questions answered about the mystery of the missing plane.

Is the debris confirmed to be from the missing Malaysian flight?

No. It's not certain that the debris found last week is from the flight that vanished in March 2014. However, Malaysia's deputy transport minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi told AFP, "from the part number, it is confirmed that it is from a Boeing 777 aircraft. This information is from MAS (Malaysia Airlines)." 

Currently Flight 370, which disappeared March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, is the only missing 777. The plane part was found covered in barnacles, which will play an important role in determining how long the piece has been in the water, as the sea creatures have a specific growth rate which can be calculated, according to NBC News.

Have any more pieces of debris been found?

None confirmed to be part of MH370. After the wing flap was found, two other pieces of debris have been found nearby, but neither are suspected to be part of the plane. One of the pieces was part of a suitcase, which is not believed to have been on the missing flight, and the other piece has been identified as a domestic ladder.

Where is the search focused now?

Before the plane crash, flight controllers received communication from the mission 12 minutes after takeoff. “If [the debris is] really from that airplane, it is way far from where it was last spotted, near the southern tip of Vietnam – roughly 3,800 miles away,” reported Wired on July 29. “Which means it’s also way far from where the search for the plane has been concentrated,” primarily off the western coast of Australia.

Is the search team looking in the wrong place?

Nearly 4,000 miles separate the location of the search operation and Reunion Island where the debris was found. However, this distance has actually given Australian Transport Safety Bureau Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan, who is leading the hunt, greater hope that the search team is looking in the right place. Ocean modeling predicted that the wreckage would eventually be brought to the African coast, so "We remain highly confident in our work defining the search area," said Mr. Dolan to The Associated Press.

How long will the search last?

“[A]s long as there are reasonable leads, the search will go on," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in March, according to The Christian Science Monitor. "We've got 60,000 square kilometers that is the subject of this search. If that's unsuccessful, there's another 60,000 square kilometers that we intend to search and, as I said, we are reasonably confident of finding the plane."

Currently, Malaysia is seeking help in finding more plane debris from territories near Reunion island, reported The Associated Press on Sunday.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to MH370 search: What you need to know
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/0804/MH370-search-What-you-need-to-know
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe