A month ago, what was deemed a step closer to the possible conclusion of the mysterious disappearing of flight MH370 was found in the form of a flaperon. A suspected part of the Boeing 777 wing which was found washed up on the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion, it would only take around 24 hours to use its serial code to identify where it came from.

But that deadline passed and it is now suspected through leaked reports that the flaperon might have belonged to another aeroplane – although no one knows.

When found, the flaperon had a fixture of goose barnacles attached to every side of it, evidence that it was fully submerged under water for a long period of time. Famed ocean-drift expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer, professor emeritus of oceanography at the University of Washington, said that things must either sink or float: the buoyancy of such an item is either more or less than water. Hmmmm.

Things were weird before this, though:

On 6 August Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, announced that experts examining the flaperon in France had “conclusively confirmed” that it was from the plane. Then, minutes later, the French prosecutor in charge of the case, Serge Mackowiak, contradicted Najib and stated that confirmation would require further tests.

This whole Malaysian Airlines saga is pretty suspect, obviously, but there are too many eyes on the case for it to just disappear.

[source: nymag]