French hunt for debris near where Malaysian wing part found

French investigators said this month that debris that washed up on the island in July – an airplane flaperon – was from MH370, a Boeing 777 that disappeared with 239 people aboard in March 2014 while on a flight scheduled from Malaysia to China.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that the pilot saw a large “white object” floating in the Indian Ocean less than 50 miles from Reunion Island.

The captain was flying at 10,000 feet and was on approach for the Island’s Saint-Denis Roland Garros airport when he alerted authorities.

Another piece of debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane may have been spotted in the Indian Ocean.

A police spokesman said: “The plane flew over the zone at low altitude for an hour where the initial sighting was reported and took drift calculations into account”.

The regional administration for Reunion said that a military plane searched the area, but despite clear skies and seas, did not find anything.

Authorities have now diverted a merchant ship to the area, but haven’t found anything yet.

Siva Vadivelou, assistant director of the French Civil Aviation Authority in Reunion, said it must have been a large object for the captain to have seen it from such a high altitude.

Based on satellite analysis of the plane’s likely trajectory, searchers are scouring the seabed off Australia’s west coast, so far covering some 60,000 square kilometres without result.