What has been long suspect and almost expected since it was discovered last week has now been confirmed. The flaperon found on a beach on the French island of Réunion is definitely from that missing airliner:
Experts have determined that the aircraft part that washed up on the island of Réunion last week is definitely from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia announced in the early hours of Thursday (Wednesday afternoon Eastern time).
The part, known as a flaperon, was flown from Réunion, near Madagascar, to a laboratory in Toulouse, France, where Malaysian, Australian and French officials gathered on Wednesday to examine it, along with representatives from Boeing.
One mystery solved. Many more to go.
BBC.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mendax on Wednesday August 05 2015, @09:29PM
As I recall, it's a combination of part number marked on the fragment and its serial number. However, it was pretty 100% certain that this part belonged to the missing plane from the beginning. People who know about the innards of Boeing 777's recognized it instantly as being from such a plane. Three 777's have been known with certainty to have been destroyed since its introduction: The BA flight that crash-landed at Heathrow, a 777 that was destroyed by a cockpit fire in Cairo, and the 777 shot down last year by the Russians (or their kin in the Ukraine). What's left?
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.