A piece of debris which experts believe may have belonged to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has arrived in France for testing.
The two-metre object, understood to be part of a plane’s wing called a 'flaperon', washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion earlier this week.
It will be taken to a defence ministry laboratory in Toulouse where it will be analysed on Wednesday to see if it matches the wing from the Boeing 777 flight which disappeared last March, while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board.
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Malaysia Airlines officials have already arrived in France ahead of the testing, which will aim to determine the serial number of the debris.
A Malaysian official and an aviation expert have both said it is almost certainly part of a Boeing 777.
A picture made available 30 July 2015 shows a piece of debris from an unidentified aircraft apparently washed ashore in Saint-Andre de la Reunion, eastern La Reunion island, France, 29 July 2015 (EPA)
A piece of luggage that was found washed up on Reunion Island a few hours after the debris was discovered has also been flown to France and will be sent to a unit outside Paris that specialises in DNA testing.
The French island is 2,800 miles from where investigators have been searching for the missing plane, the disappearance of which has been dubbed one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.
