crate. investigators will pore over every inch of the wing part to find out for certain if it did come from the missing mh370, perhaps even find out what happened to the plane. it s entirely possible that when the flaperon separated, it may have hit something else on the airplane before it actually went into the water. to get that kind of damage, that would be the more likely scenario. australian authorities say pictures of the wing part already settle much of the doubt. the photographs that are available are of such detail that it may be possible to make an identification without further investigation. they re scouring the shoreline for even more debris. cnn has learned the intelligence community never gave up on the idea that the plane was deliberately steered off-course. sources tell cnn that a preliminary conclusion was the flight path was most likely the
typhoon had passed through, they faced enormous challenges. as david said, it was likely a lot of wreckage there right after it went into the water, but by the time searchers got there, most of it had dispersed and sunk. i think, tom, finding no more debris on this island or anyplace else, what do they do? they keep looking. right now they have aerial searches, and they ve alerted the people on madagascar and the east coast of africa to be alert. it would still be months or a year before something washes up, or get into the current and end up in south america. the earthquake in japan, it was two years later that items floated across the pacific. so this debris, whether it s a crash, a tsunami, a shipwreck it could float around forever until it lands on some beach. david, talk more about the damage seen on this flaperon, this piece of the wing that s
the immediate area, there s also concern if this is part of a new search area, this will absolutely complicate matters. the search continues on reunion island as well for perhaps other pieces of debris. nima, thanks very much. let s bring back our experts, david souciet, and assuming this is a piece of that plane, is it possible the remainder either went pretty much whole to the bottom of the indians ocean or blew up and there could be debris all over the place? what it looks like to me i m going to make a couple assumptions, but it appears the best probability is it was torn off in flight, that the aircraft had made a rapid descent, and during that descent there was flutter and it tore off this piece. if that s the case, it hit the water and there s a lot of debris everywhere.
they ll figure out its secrets. they ll look at all the chemicals involved, too, because they have to figure out, tom, 23 maybe there was some sort of explosion that caused this plane to go down. correct le if i m wrong, they may be able to determine that based on this one piece of debris. it s possible, but not likely that debris is so far back in the middle of the plane or toward the middle of the wing. if there was a catastrophic explosion, even it s in the front of plane, the fuselage goes to the water, the back part of the plane might not show any evidence of what caused the initial breakup. it could but it might now. richard, what about the suitcase discovered near the flaperon on that beach on reunion island not far off the coast of madagascar and africa? have they determined it is in fact connected to the plane? no, they haven t. they say it s a matter of interest.
authorities say a torn suitcase also found on reunion island will be examined separately and a french criminal research institute. but the primary focus right now is on that wing partor flaperon. officials are expressing growing confidence it is wreckage from the malaysian airliner that vanished over a year ago with 239 people on board. correspondents, analysts and newsmakers standing by as we cover all the news breaking right now. first let s get the latest from our aviation correspondent rene marsh. in just days, boeing and ntsb investigators will be on the ground in france and we could begin to get answers to critical questions, like whether the debris is from flight 370. and is there forensic evidence on the airplane part that would help unlock one of aviation s biggest mysteries? tonight, what could be the first critical piece of physical evidence in the disappearance of