New wing part could reveal MH370 clues, hopes Australia

Australian MH370 search authorities are hopeful a wing part found in Tanzania will shed light on how the flight crashed, amid a lack of public information on debris found a year ago.

As the underwater hunt far off Australia’s west coast draws to a close without any sign of the plane, there has been speculation the flight’s final resting place may be outside the current search zone in the southern Indian Ocean.

The Malaysia Airlines jet was carrying 239 passengers and crew when it disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

The first debris linked to MH370 — a two-metre-long wing part known as a flaperon — washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion in 2015.

But it has remained in the hands of French investigators, leaving questions unanswered on how the airliner entered the ocean.

“We have also seen some analysis from the French that suggests that it’s a possibility that (the flaperon) was in a deployed state,” Peter Foley, the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau (ATSB)’s head of MH370 search operations, told Channel Nine late on Sunday.

A deployed state, which means the flaperon was extended for landing, could suggest that someone was at the controls — the “rogue pilot” theory — when the aircraft entered the water. Most of the victims were from Australia, Malaysia and China.