CHINESE Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Thursday that search efforts for the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 should continue to find the truth behind one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history.
Wang made the call after Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed early Thursday that a Boeing 777 wing segment discovered in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion is from the missing jet, the first real breakthrough in the search for the plane that disappeared 17 months ago.
Prior to the latest discovery, a massive surface and underwater hunt had failed to find the plane. The plane went missing March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 on board, most of them Chinese.
Malaysia should consider the feelings of the families of passengers on the tragic flight and further elaborate on the latest developments, Wang said.
The Chinese Government requests Malaysia to continue the investigation into the cause of the accident, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in an earlier statement.
Malaysia said Thursday that paint color and maintenance-record matches proved that a piece of wing found on the shore of an Indian Ocean island was part of the wreckage of MH370.
Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said investigators on the French island of Reunion had collected more aircraft debris, including a plane window and aluminium foil, but there was no confirmation they also belonged to the missing plane.
With the first trace of the plane now confirmed, Malaysia has asked the governments of neighboring Mauritius and Madagascar to help widen the search area.
Despite the Malaysian confirmation, prosecutors in France stopped short of declaring they were certain, saying only that there was a “very strong presumption.”
Paris Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said this was based on technical data supplied by both the manufacturer and airline but gave no indication that experts had discovered a serial number or unique markings that would put the link beyond doubt.
(SD-Xinhua)
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