Resources

Right flaperon — Réunion

Found 29 July 2015 · confirmed 3 September 2015 as 9M-MRO

First physical evidence. Internal part numbers traced through EADS CASA to 9M-MRO. A 777 flaperon does not drift from Kazakhstan or the South China Sea to Réunion.

Right flaperon found on Réunion

29 July 2015

A Boeing 777 right flaperon washes ashore at Saint-Denis, Réunion. French authorities later confirm it is from 9M-MRO — the first physical evidence.

Flaperon confirmed as 9M-MRO

3 September 2015

French authorities confirm the Réunion flaperon belongs to MH370. The disappearance is no longer a missing-aircraft case without wreckage.

DGA-TA / French judiciary

Flaperon examination, Toulouse

Confirmed the Réunion flaperon as 9M-MRO. Part remains in French judicial custody.

Saint-Denis, Réunion

Flaperon find · 29 July 2015

First physical evidence of 9M-MRO, 16 months after disappearance.

Controlled descent / ditching

Someone still flying at the end

A pilot or system flies a glide after flame-out, so the wreck lies tens of kilometres from the 7th arc. Flaperon damage is read by some independent engineers as consistent with a ditching sequence.

CSIRO

Debris-drift modelling

Reverse-drifted the Réunion flaperon and later debris to weight 7th-arc latitudes.

The Debris Swarm

Jeff Wise · Finding MH370 S1E19 · 15 November 2024 · 39:26

After six months with only the Réunion flaperon, a cluster of western-Indian-Ocean pieces appears in 2016. CSIRO reverse-drift and barnacle work are the scientific spine; the swarm’s timing is the puzzle Wise keeps open.

CSIRO debris-drift studies

Griffin, Oke, et al. · 2016–2017

Oceanographic reverse-drift of the Réunion flaperon and other debris, used to weight 7th-arc latitudes. Field trials on a replica flaperon informed windage.

Left outboard aft flap — Mauritius

Confirmed to 9M-MRO by unique manufacturing numbers

Îlot Bernache recovery. One of three serial-confirmed trailing-edge pieces (with Réunion flaperon and Tanzania flap).

Pemba Island, Tanzania

Confirmed right outboard flap · 20 June 2016

Largest confirmed piece after the flaperon.

Asset denial of the Freescale team

Quiet Exodus thesis · not adopted as a finding

Hypothesis: the United States removed twenty Freescale employees from China’s reach, using a clandestine compact-fusion platform, because they were the programme’s irreplaceable integration unit. Headcount is confirmed. The programme-link, the intercept, and the 18:22 structural kill are not.

Blaine Gibson

Independent debris hunter

Recovered several western-Indian-Ocean pieces, including the Mozambique flap-track fairing. Finds sit in the Malaysian debris tables at various confirmation classes.

Florence de Changy: US / AWACS intercept over the South China Sea

Netflix episode 3. Sensitive cargo, jamming in the FIR gap, an ignored land-now order, a shoot-down before Chinese airspace. Location is inconsistent with western-Indian-Ocean debris.

Jeff Wise: northern hijack to Kazakhstan, BFO spoofed

2015 New York Magazine thesis, restated in Netflix episode 2 and in Finding MH370 “Landing MH370.” Keep BTO, discard or spoof BFO, fly borders, land on a long Central Asian runway. Requires the African debris field to be explained away.

Landing MH370

Jeff Wise · Finding MH370 S1E27 · 28 November 2024 · 45:12

The northern-landing telling: discard or spoof BFO, keep BTO, fly borders, land at a long Central Asian runway (Wise’s 2015 candidate was Yubileyniy / Baikonur). Requires the African debris field to be explained away.

Left outboard aft flap confirmed

10 May 2016 · Mauritius

A flap section found at Îlot Bernache, Mauritius, is identified by unique manufacturing numbers as belonging to 9M-MRO.

Malaysian 370: What Happened?

National Geographic UK · 3 March 2015

Early network special, filmed before most African debris and before the 2018 report. Useful as a snapshot of what was sayable at year one; superseded on debris and end-of-flight.

Malaysian summary of possible MH370 debris

ICAO Annex 13 Team · updated 2017

Itemised list of wreckage recovered on western Indian Ocean coasts, with confirmation classes: confirmed, almost certain, highly likely, likely.

MH370: The Plane That Disappeared

Netflix · three episodes · March 2023

Louise Malkinson’s three-part series gives one episode to each of three tellings: the pilot, a Russian hijack (Jeff Wise), and a US intercept (Florence de Changy). Families and Malaysia Airlines crisis staff are interviewed. It is a survey of hypotheses, not a finding.

Northern corridor

Inconsistent with BFO sign and with African debris

Early public maps showed a northern Inmarsat ring. BFO and later debris on western Indian Ocean coasts disfavour it.

Right outboard flap — Pemba Island

Item 20 · ~4.57 × 1.83 m · confirmed

Large right outboard flap found in Tanzania and confirmed as 9M-MRO. Third serial-confirmed trailing-edge surface.

Right outboard flap confirmed in Tanzania

20 June 2016

A 4.6 m right outboard flap section is found on Pemba Island, Tanzania, and confirmed as 9M-MRO.

The aircraft ended in the southern Indian Ocean

Supported by SATCOM southern BFO, 7th-arc geometry, and serial-confirmed debris on western Indian Ocean coasts. Main wreckage still unfound.

The Remarkable Blaine Gibson

Jeff Wise · Finding MH370 S1E21 · 18 November 2024 · 52:58

Wise’s case against treating Gibson’s beach finds as ordinary luck: “No Step” in 20 minutes on a Mozambique sandbar; a Madagascar piece appearing between two passes of a TV crew; village objects later identified as 777 interior.

Wikipedia — Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

en.wikipedia.org · living page · read 18 September 2026

Crowd-maintained digest of the public case: 239 dead, 9M-MRO, 8 March 2014, KUL–PEK, cause undetermined. Useful as a citation map into ATSB, MOT, Inmarsat and Ocean Infinity. Not a primary source.