A second piece of suspected plane debris¹ has washed ashore² on the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion as a wing part found nearby suspected to have come from missing flight MH370 arrived in France for analysis.

第二块疑似飞机残骸被冲上印度洋法属留尼汪岛(La Réunion)。与此同时，此前在附近发现的疑似来自失踪的MH370航班的一块机翼部件已被送到法国接受检测。

The discovery of the metallic³ object on Sunday — reported on a local radio station as being a possible door of a plane — follows confirmation⁴ from authorities that a piece of aircraft debris washed up on La Réunion and found on Wednesday is from a Boeing 777, raising hopes that it comes from the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft that disappeared 17 months ago.

周日发现金属物件（据当地电台报道可能是飞机舱门）之前，有关部门证实，上周三发现的被冲上留尼汪岛的一块飞机碎片来自一架波音777(Boeing 777)飞机，这意味着它很有可能来自17个月以前消失的那架马来西亚航空公司(Malaysia Airlines)飞机。

But police say the debris found on Sunday is not yet being treated as evidence and one Malaysian official cast doubt on it being related to MH370, telling the Associated Press that it was not a door but a domestic ladder.

但警方表示，周日发现的碎片尚未被视为证据。一名马来西亚官员怀疑其是否与MH370航班有关联，这名官员对美联社(Associated Press)表示，那不是一扇门，而是家用扶梯。

The earlier piece, identified as a flaperon, was escorted by police on Saturday from Paris to the defence ministry⁵ laboratory in Balma, near Toulouse. La Réunion is a French territory, which is why the country is leading the investigation⁶.

先前发现的残骸已被确定是一块襟副翼。上周六，它在警方护送下从巴黎被运抵图卢兹附近巴尔马(Balma)的国防部实验室。留尼汪岛是法国领土，因此目前由法国牵头进行调查。

The disappearance⁷ of MH370, which vanished on March 8 2014 while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing carrying 239 people, has been one of the biggest mysteries in aviation.

载有239人的MH370航班2014年3月8日在从吉隆坡飞往北京途中失联，这起事件成为航空史上最大的谜团之一。

“The flaperon is officially identified as being part of a Boeing 777,” said Liow Tiong Lai, Malaysia’s transport minister, on Sunday. “If more debris can be found it will aid the experts in the substantive⁸ analysis of what happened to the missing plane MH370.”

“这块襟副翼被正式确定为来自一架波音777，”马来西亚交通部长廖中莱(Liow Tiong Lai)周日表示。“如果能够发现更多碎片，那将有助于专家们对MH370飞机的失事真相进行实质性分析。”

If the pieces are from the missing flight, it could provide critical clues to its fate. The plane suddenly changed course to the west after heading north-east from Kuala Lumpur. It then lost contact with air traffic control.

如果这些残骸被确认来自失联航班，它可能提供关于飞机失事真相的关键线索。该机从吉隆坡起飞后，最初朝东北方向飞行，后来突然改变航向向西飞行，随即与空管部门失联。

Malaysia, Australia and China have been conducting an extensive search, working on the theory that it crashed within a 120,000 sq km area of the southern Indian Ocean, 1,800km south-west of Australia.

马来西亚、澳大利亚和中国一直在大片海域进行搜索，他们的推测是，该机在南印度洋一个12万平方公里的区域内坠毁，位于澳大利亚西南方向1800公里处。

Experts said the discovery of the wreckage⁹ washed up on La Réunion, a long way from the theoretical crash zone, was consistent with the direction of the ocean currents.

专家们表示，在远离理论推定的坠机海域的留尼汪岛发现被冲上岸的飞机碎片，与洋流方向是吻合的。

News of Sunday’s find was originally reported on a local radio station as being a possible door of a plane. It was described as a large metal object, covered in foreign writing.

周日发现第二块碎片的新闻最初由当地一家电台报道，称其是一个大的金属物件，疑似一扇飞机舱门，上面有外国文字。

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said on Thursday that the discovery of the wreckage on the island was “not inconsistent with the current search location” that is 4,200km east of La Réunion.

澳大利亚交通安全局(Australian Transport Safety Bureau)上周四表示，在留尼汪岛发现飞机残骸“与当前的搜索位置并不矛盾”；当前搜索位置在留尼汪岛以东4200公里。

In April, the MH370 search plans, which have already included the scouring¹⁰ of 55,000 sq km of sea floor, were revised to expand the original search area from 60,000 sq km to 120,000 sq km, if required.

今年4月，有关方面调整了MH370的搜索计划（已经包括对5.5万平方公里的海底进行拉网式搜索），将搜索区域从最初的6万平方公里扩大至12万平方公里（如果需要的话）。

Australian officials had indicated that if nothing was found by that stage, then the search operation for the airliner¹¹ would not be extended. The undersea search is one of the most expensive in aviation history, costing about $150m to date.

澳大利亚官员曾表示，如果届时仍一无所获，搜索这架客机的行动将不会被延长。此次海底搜索是航空史上最昂贵的搜寻行动之一，迄今已耗资约1.5亿美元。