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 According to a Reuters witness and Agence France Presse, an Air
France flight carrying the debris landed at Orly airport near Paris
at 0417 GMT (12.17 a.m. EDT).
It will be delivered to a military unit near the southwest city of
Toulouse which specializes in analyzing aviation wreckage.
Experts hope the barnacled 2-2.5 meters (6.5-8 feet) long wing
surface known as a flaperon and a fragment of luggage could yield
clues as to the fate of Malaysia Airlines <MLYAF.PK> Flight MH370,
which vanished without trace in March 2014.
There were 239 passengers and crew on board, and some families of
the victims are demanding further compensation from the airline.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told Reuters in Kuala
Lumpur on Saturday that additional Malaysian officials were headed
to Reunion to look for more debris and others would go to France.
 "If the flaperon does belongs to MH370 it is actually in accordance
with the drift pattern seen in the Southern Indian Ocean. But we do
not want to speculate. We will wait for verification from the French
authorities," he said.
Discovery of the debris may finally confirm the plane crashed into
the sea after veering off course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing,
helping to end 16 months of lingering uncertainty for relatives.
Investigators believe someone deliberately switched off MH370's
transponder before diverting it thousands of miles off course. Most
of the passengers were Chinese.
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The debris will be analyzed at a lab staffed by 600 experts that is
operated by the defense ministry near Toulouse.
If the serial number on the flaperon confirms that it is from Flight
370 then the laboratory can use sophisticated tools to try to glean
more information about the causes of the crash, such as whether its
shape corresponds more to a mid-air explosion or a crash into the
ocean.
The defense ministry also contributed to the investigation of Air
France flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris that killed 228
people in June 2009.
A fragment of luggage that was also found in the area is being flown
into France with the aircraft debris and will be sent to a unit
outside Paris that specializes in DNA tests.
(Additional reporting by Julie Rimbert in Toulouse; Writing by Leila
Abboud; and Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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