Australia ‘increasingly confident’ wreckage is from MH370

“If it points to a Boeing 777, it has to have come from MH370”, Peter Clark told TVNZ’s Breakfast.

The debris, as well as a suitcase that has washed up on the island, will be sent to France for testing.

No trace of the plane, which was bound for Beijing, has been found, despite months of aerial and sea searches over thousands of square miles of the southern Indian Ocean. The French authority that will investigate the accident, BEA, can not yet confirm whether the fragment was in fact from the missing plane.

He added that French and Malaysian authorities would be responsible for the identification of the Reunion debris and perhaps matching it to the missing plane.

The aircraft carrying 239 people disappeared on its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bejing in March 2014.

Prime Minister Najib Razak said on his personal blog Thursday that a Malaysian team is on its way to the southwestern French city of Toulouse.

“I always wanted the plane to be found so I suppose that part of my wish might be happening”, she said from her Biloela home.

Truss said the bag that was also discovered must be taken seriously, however he doubts it has also come from MH370 given it does not have the signs of being in the water for a long period.

A British official said: “We have some experts in the MoD who work in mapping, naval surveys and things like that”.

Part of a bag with a closed zip was found on Thursday on the island near the spot where the flaperon had been found.

He said he called Radio Freedom, his favorite station in Reunion, and the police after he found the wing part.

“We are increasingly confident that this debris is from MH370″, Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the agency leading the underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean, told AFP.

“An aircraft debris was found yesterday morning on the coast near the town of Saint-Andre in Reunion. We can’t say for certainty, but we do think there is a chance that this is it”, he added.

The discovery, if proven to be MH370, will eliminate some of the “fanciful theories” that have been around, Truss said.

Doane reports that a group of Chinese victims’ families have posted a letter online saying they are awaiting official confirmation of whether the piece of debris is indeed a part of missing flight MH370. “We have had many false alarms before, but for the sake of the families, who have lost loved ones, and suffered such heartbreaking uncertainty, I pray that we will find out the truth so that they may have closure and peace”, Razak said on his personal blog.

But Malaysia airlines said it would be “premature” to speculate on its origin.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said while the part “could be a very important piece of evidence” if it was linked to MH370, using reverse modelling to determine more precisely where the debris may have drifted from was “almost impossible”.