A critical identification plate on the Boeing 777 flaperon washed up on the Reunion Island that would tie it to MH370 is missing because of the effect of sea water on the adhesive that bonds it to the structure.

According to a former crash investigator the metal ID plate has almost certainly come away because of the “exposure to sea water.”

So what should have been a simple ID exercise now becomes a time consuming forensic investigation.

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A Boeing part number (657BB) painted on to the flaperon confirms the object is from a Boeing 777, the Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister said yesterday.

“From the part number, it is confirmed that it is from a Boeing 777 aircraft. This information is from MAS (Malaysia Airlines). They have informed me,” Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said Friday.

The flaperon, has been sent to Toulouse in France to government laboratories, where the police, crash investigators and Boeing representatives expect to verify if it came from MH370.

Under French law air crashes are treated as criminal investigations and thus led by the police.

Malaysia Airlines MH370 disappeared on March 8 last year with 239 passengers and crew aboard on a flight from KL to Beijing.

Investigators will likely have to disassemble the flaperon to find other ID numbers that will link it to MH370.

Panels will have batch numbers that will almost certainly tie the flaperon to a production run at particular time that were installed on various 777s including MH370.

The 777 that operated MH370 carried the registration 9M-MRO and had a Boeing construction Number 28420 and Line Number 404. Its first flight was on the 14th of May 2002. It had flown 53, 465 hours when it disappeared and had flown 7,525 flights.