What have they found? A flaperon appeared on Reunion last week, and was sent to France to be assessed by experts, and has now been verified as genuine.

Q) Surely “when”, not “if” - since one flaperon has been found, there must be more debris? Not necessarily floating on the surface of the ocean. Most aircraft parts will sink.

The flaperon may shed light on what kind of stress the plane endured as it hit the ocean, but it's unlikely to tell us much about the reason the aircraft failed in the first place.

And scientists have said that the age of the barnacles on the flaperon – and any other aeroplane debris which may yet reach land – may be able to help track where and when the flight went missing.