PARIS — A sea-crusted wing part washed up on an island in the western Indian Ocean may be the first trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 since it vanished nearly a year and a half ago, and a tragic but finally solid clue to one of aviation's most perplexing and expensive mysteries. Malaysia's prime minister said Thursday the debris found on the French island of Reunion will be sent to the French city of Toulouse for investigation. Najib promised to make any new information public quickly. Air safety investigators — one of them a Boeing investigator — have identified the component as a “flaperon” from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing, a US official said. Flight 370, which disappeared March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, is the only 777 known to be missing. “It's the first real evidence that there is a possibility that a part of the aircraft may have been found,” said Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss, whose country is leading the search for the plane in a remote patch of ocean far off Australia's west coast. — AP
