two areas. first of all, the barnacles. any form of sea life we were talking about, tom was talking about. anything like that that gives an indication of the water where it has been, which part of the ocean. we know that there are specific forms of marine life. we know that there could be traces that can give good indications from which part of the ocean it s come. and the second is much more basic. you just have to look and test and look micro scopically at this flaperon and they will start to see where the strains are, the compressions, the terse. just look at the picture on the screen at the moment. how those rips, how these shreds were made, that will give them incredible information on how the flaperon departed from the aircraft. here s a question a lot of people are asking, miles. if the flaperon was floating on the fal the surface of the ocean why wouldn t investigators have
chaotic falling may do damage to it. the main part to bear in mind in all of this is is that this is one part about seven feet long, the entire wing of this plane from one side to the other is almost 200 feed. that s a huge difference. and when you think back to what happened when the twa plan went down off the coast of long island, look at the thousands of pieces they were able to collect from that plane and analyze to figure out what happened there. even now people dispute whether or not they got it right. so this is a very, very important clue they have right now but it is one very small one and just the start. tom foreman, thank you. let s bring in our cnn aviation analyst miles o brien joining us, along with peter goals joining us, richard quest, and our law enforcement analyst tom fuentes. richard quest, we heard tom s report. what evidence on this flaperon, this piece of this wing, will investigators use to learn more about the plane s disappearance? i think there s going to
an island is a surprise itself. another month or two from now, we might have debris watch up on madagascar, which is a much bigger island further to the west, or maybe even the east coast of south africa. as the debris is coming around that gyre, as they pointed out, this this is just ha tiny speck of an island to have anything wash up. you agree, it s not necessarily a bat sign that they haven t found so far anything else? no, i don t think it s bad at all. i question whether the suitcase is part of this investigation or not. i think we were a little excited. some people when they saw it, but it would have drifted at a much different rate than the flanneren. a lot of people have suggested these two pieces of supposed debris, the flaperon and suitcase very different. it would be a huge coincidence if they both wound up at the same spot. that s why a lot of people are
are linked to mh370 that would rather strengthen the case that we are in the right area, but it didn t prove it conclusively. ocean graphers we have spoken with say there s no magic bullet. they say that it does officer very important clues, but added that the debris doesn t move on a smooth trajectory because of the turbulence and various storms that could have altered the path of this debris. wolf? thank you, pamela brown. i want to bring it cnn s tom foreman. he s been looking at the flaperon, the piece of wing, the clues it may reveal. what are you finding out? the front end of this does does not seem to have as much there are several theories as to why that could be the case. if we take about a plane that was way up in the air in a high-speed dive because it either ran out of fuel or somebody pointed it down, the flaperon would normally be
the hands of the very best people in the world. the french are very experienced as a result of 447. they re looking for things like deformity. if there s any sign of deformity in this particular piece. we know the trailing edge is damage and that suggests something. i do disagree with richard slightly. i think we re likely to find more pieces of wreckage. not large amounts. it will be dispersed and will turn up somewhere in that area of the east african coast. and i can t honestly believe that just one flaperon is the only thing that survived that crash. and i think that there will be not large pieces, mind you, but there s still quite a lot of the parts of that plane, which is a relatively modern design with large composite parts which float more easily than metal parts do. i think there s a fair chance we ll get other bits there. do you think they ll ever find that plane? i do. i really do. i think that there s concentratconcentrate ed effort. i believe they re looking in the r