La Reunion wreckage identified as Boeing 777

SAINT-ANDRE , July 31

Malaysian authorities confirmed on Friday that plane wreckage washed up on an Indian Ocean island was from a Boeing 777, meaning the part is almost certainly from missing flight MH370.

The debris, part of a plane wing, could provide the first tangible clue towards unlocking the mystery surrounding the doomed Malaysia Airlines plane, which disappeared without trace in March last year with 239 people on board.

“I believe that we are moving closer to solving the mystery of MH370. This could be the convincing evidence that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean,” Malaysia’s deputy transport minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi told AFP.

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However authorities have warned one small piece of plane debris was unlikely to completely clear up one of aviation’s greatest puzzles.

The Malaysia Airlines flight was one of only three Boeing 777s to have been involved in major incidents, along with the downing of the MH17 over Ukraine last year and the Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco airport in 2013 that left three dead.

The wing component found on the French island of La Reunion bears the part number “657 BB”, according to photos of the debris. “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,” the minister told AFP.

Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the MH370 search, said greater clarity on the origin of the part should be confirmed “within the next 24 hours”.

“We are increasingly confident that this debris is from MH370,” Dolan told AFP.

Flight MH370 was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it mysteriously turned off course and vanished on March 8 last year.

An Australian-led search has spent 16 months combing the southern Indian Ocean for the aircraft, but no confirmed physical evidence has ever been found, sparking wild conspiracy theories about the plane’s fate. The fruitless search in January led Malaysian authorities to declare all on board were presumed dead.

For relatives of those aboard, torn between wanting closure and hoping beyond hope that their loved ones were still somehow alive, the discovery was yet another painful turn on an emotional rollercoaster.

Australian Jeanette Maguire, whose sister Cathy was on board, said the discovery of the wreckage was “a very bittersweet feeling for all of the family, it’s quite emotional.”

“We’re really hoping for answers that we get from this wreckage that it is MH370 so that we have some idea and another part of our puzzle as to where our family and everyone else on board has gone, and have ended up, unfortunately,” she added.

The wreckage is being sent to France for further analysis and is expected to arrive on Saturday.