A wing flap suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 arrived at a French military testing facility today where it will be analysed by experts.
A truck brought the roughly 2.44-metre component known as a flaperon to the DGA TA aeronautical testing site near Toulouse, accompanied by police motorcycles and a police car.
French aviation experts will try to establish whether the wreckage that was found on the Indian Ocean island Reunion was part of the Boeing 777 which disappeared March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.
The experts, including a legal expert, will start their inquiry on Wednesday, according to the Paris prosecutor's office.
On Monday, an investigating judge will meet with Malaysian authorities and representatives of the French aviation investigative agency, known as the BEA, according to a statement late Friday.
Air safety investigators, including one from Boeing, have identified the component as a flaperon from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing, a US official said.
The official wasn't authorised to be publicly identified.
Flight 370 is the only missing 777.
Under a microscope and expert eyes, the wing fragment that washed up on the beach of the volcanic island could yield clues not just to its path through the Indian Ocean, but also to what happened to the airplane.
Analysts at the French aviation laboratory hope to glean details from metal stress to see what caused the flap to break off, spot explosive or other chemical traces, and study the sea life that made its home on the wing to pinpoint where it came from.
Even if the piece is confirmed to be wreckage from Flight 370, there's no guarantee that investigators can find the plane's vital black box recorders or other debris.
A multinational search effort has so far come up empty.
