PARIS: A piece of Boeing 777 wreckage washed up on an Indian Ocean island and suspected to belong to missing flight MH370 arrived on Saturday at a French laboratory for analysis.

If confirmed as being from the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight, the discovery would mark the first breakthrough in a case that has baffled aviation experts for 16 months.

The convoy containing the two-metre (six-and-a-half-foot) wing part was escorted by police overland from Paris to the defence ministry laboratory near the southwestern city of Toulouse, encased in a wooden crate.

The part, identified as a flaperon, was flown overnight to the mainland from the French island of La Reunion, where it was found on a beach in the town of Saint Andre earlier this week.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2015

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