[slats11]

Although it has not been officially confirmed, it seems very likely we have the first piece of debris from MH370. Unofficial sources have stated it is from MH370. Remember that unofficial sources correctly informed WSJ of the existence of Inmarsat data.

I doubt it is going to take 3 days to get to France - more likely buying everyone a few days before the media starts pushing for a statement. I would expect official confirmation next week.

Some conspiracy people are suggesting that it couldn't float for 16 months and must have been "planted" to be found and support the SIO location. I think we can rule that out - all it would take would be for one piece of forensic analysis to be inconsistent, and there would be a major problem. Better no evidence than incorrect evidence.

So I think this safely puts away the northern arc scenario, the somewhere in China scenario, the Maldives, and Diego Garcia.

It came down in the IO. The fact nothing has been found further north (with more shores to wash up on and more maritime traffic) supports a location well south in the IO.

Unless we find the hull, we won't know a lot more. But the south IO does fit with this finding, and does fit with the Inmarsat data (not withstanding the limitations of this data).

There are a number of plausible explanations. All of these have some inconsistencies and oddities. Of the explanations however, I still favour a deliberate act by someone - most likely involving the death of the person responsible.

The unavoidable fact remains that the human mind is now far more fallible (probably by a couple of orders of magnitude) than the technology.