[Brock McEwen]

Thanks, Mr. Peabody. Here's a quote I received from someone who seems to have done his homework:

"The first thing to notice is the short transparent red ribbons on the fractured surface. These show that the honeycomb material is nomex, which normally has a red phenolic resin coating.

"Much of the composite materials used on the B777s were manufactured by Hexcel Corp. Looking at their following website shows that their Nomex honeycombs (e.g. HRH-10) are coated with phenolic resin: http://www.hexcel.com/resources/honeycomb-data-sheets

Phenolic resins are often dark-colored from yellow to dark red: https://www.thechemco.com/chemical/phenolic-resin/

In other words, according to this person, those red ribbons are a dead giveaway.

Has this person erred in judgment, then? He appears to have arrived at a much different conclusion.

So has retired Boeing engineer Ken Goodwin, who believes it is a trailing edge flap. (https://twitter.com/KenGoodwin6/status/7...0206098433)

Not arguing: just trying to collect facts.