Malaysian PM confirms airplane debris is from MH370 wreckage

“Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an global team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370″, Najib said in a televised address.

Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that the part of the plane’s wing, known as a “flaperon“, which was found on Reunion Island on July 29, is from Flight 370.

The family members are now requesting that Malaysia Airlines help arrange a trip for them to Reunion Island.

The piece of debris, a wing component called a flaperon, was found last week on a beach on the French island La Reunion, near Madagascar. And the waiting has not ended, even if debris suspected to be from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 offers new clues.

The statement said this “is indeed a major breakthrough for us in resolving the disappearance of MH370”.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said investigators on the French-governed island of Reunion had collected more aircraft debris, including a plane window and aluminium foil, but there was no confirmation they also belonged to the missing plane.

Irene Burrows, the 85-year-old mother of missing Australian passenger Rod Burrows, who was lost with his wife, Mary, said last year that she didn’t expect the mystery to be solved in her lifetime.

He pointed out the Island was French territory and they had the right to continue their investigation. But Liow says he can not confirm they belong to Flight 370, which went missing on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board. “I can not confirm that it’s from MH370”.

There remained a difference of opinion between Malaysian officials and their counterparts in France, the U.S. and Australia over whether the wing part, known as a flaperon, was definitely from Flight 370.

He said Thursday the paint color on the flaperon also matches with the airline’s records.

The finding of the wing piece “is certainly a step toward closure”, Smyth said, adding: “It is important not to think of closure as a check box, but more of a journey and process for people with a lot of layers”.

Al Jazeera’s Sohail Rahman, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said that the families of the passengers have accused the government and Malaysia Airlines of not sharing with them all the information they have.

China’s Foreign Ministry has reacted to Malaysia’s confirmation by saying that the result points to a conclusion that the flight crashed.

About two-thirds of the passengers were from China, and in Beijing, Xu Jinghong said she could not understand why Malaysian and French authorities did not make their statements together.

In Kuala Lumpur, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “we have to respect the feelings of the relatives and understand the inner torment they’ve suffered in the past days”.

Numerous relatives believe that the jetliner is embroiled in some political conspiracy and that Malaysia is hiding the truth. We still need the wreckage to prove.

The family members, whose trust in the Malaysian government has been eroded by repeated missteps over the past 17 months, held a protest outside the Malaysia Airlines office in Beijing.

After several hours on Thursday morning, the group was invited into a closed-door talk with airline officials.

Earlier, Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed that the piece of debris was from the Boeing 777 airliner that was bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers and crew on board when it went missing.

French prosecutors overseeing the analysis of the flaperon, however, say that while there are “very strong presumptions” that it’s from MH370, more tests need to be carried out to ensure absolute certainty.

But Associated Press reports form France that the Paris prosecutor’s office, which is spearheading a French legal inquiry into the crash, denied that investigators had any new debris.

“The fact that this wreckage does now look very much like it is from MH370 does seem to confirm that it went down in the Indian Ocean, it does seem very consistent with the search pattern that we’ve been using for the last few months”, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Melbourne Radio 3AW.

An unidentified man walks on the beach of Saint-Andre, Reunion Island, in the hope of finding more plane debris, Thursday, August 6, 2015.