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Malaysia Airlines flight 370
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French gendarmes and police inspect the wing part that washed up on the beach in Saint-Andre, on the French island La Reunion, in the Indian Ocean. Photo: Reuters

Update | MH370 watch: Plane debris shipped to France for analysis 'almost certainly' from a Boeing 777

US official says there is 'high confidence' that wreckage is from Boeing 777, the same make as missing Malaysian airliner - and no other 777 is known to have been lost at sea

Malaysia is "almost certain" that plane debris found on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean is from a Boeing 777, the deputy transport minister said today, heightening the possibility it could be wreckage from missing Flight MH370.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said "initial reports suggest the debris is very likely to be from a 777" but that it is too early to speculate.

"To find out as fast as possible, the debris will be shipped by French authorities to Toulouse, site of the nearest office of the BEA, the French authority responsible for civil aviation accident investigations," he said in a statement.

Malaysia sent a team of transport and aviation officials to Toulouse, while a second team is travelling to Reunion Island.

"As soon as we have more information or any verification we will make it public. 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," Najib said.

In another development, local reports said a damaged suitcase was recovered in Saint-Andre, the coastal town on the island where the wing flap was found.

Pictures and French-language reports showed a local man, identified as shore-cleaning association member Johnny Begue, holding the badly mangled debris resembling luggage. However, it was as yet unclear if the discovery was linked to the plane.

Begue reportedly found the suitcase while he and fellow association members were cleaning up the beach. They found the wing flap a day later.

French and Australian officials urged caution against premature conclusions before air safety investigators complete an examination of the large piece of wreckage that washed up on a beach in the French island of La Reunion, off Madagascar.

For now, one focus of the analysis is a code visible on the wing flap, which holds clues as to what type of plane it belonged to. If it is determined to be part of a Boeing 777 - the same make of the MH370 airliner - then it could rejuvenate the long-drawn-out search for the long-missing plane. No other 777 is known to have gone missing at sea.

The Guardian reported that a La Reunion-based airline mechanic told journalists he studied the debris with French gendarmes and that it was stamped with the code 657-BB. He "concluded with 99.9 per cent certainty that it originated from a Boeing 777".

Further supporting the theory, aviation website AirLive.net posted a Boeing manual listing the code 657-BB as belonging to a 777.

Earlier, a US official said investigators have a “high degree of confidence” that a photo of the barnacle-encrusted debris is of a wing component unique to the 777. The barnacles, which also hold clues about the plane's journey to La Reunion, suggest the wing flap had been floating in the sea for a while.

Investigators — including a Boeing air safety investigator — have identified the component as a “flaperon” from the trailing edge of a wing. The part is roughly 2-2.5 metres in length, according to pictures of the debris.

The plane vanished without a trace in March last year while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history. 

READ MORE: ‘We’ve been kept in the dark’: Chinese MH370 relatives complain about lack of information after wreckage discovery

This map shows the proximity of Reunion Island to the original MH370 search area

Although the discovery is far from where authorities believe the plane went down near Australia, experts said the find could be consistent with the existing theories about the whereabouts of the main wreckage. 

Australia's deputy prime minister Warren Truss said it was a realistic possibility that wreckage from the plane could have floated thousands of kilometres to the remote island, off the east coast of Madagascar, via ocean currents.

"A piece of debris could have floated a very, very long way in 16 months and it is a very, very long way to the Reunion islands from where we think the aircraft entered the water.

"Clearly we are treating this as a major lead," he said.

The Australian government released a statement today saying: "In the event that it is identified as being from MH370 on La Reunion Island, it would be consistent with other analysis and modelling that the resting place of the aircraft is in the southern Indian Ocean.”

WATCH: Wreckage found on Reunion Island may be from missing MH370

If confirmed, the discovery would quash various conspiracy theories that the plane had somehow, secretly, landed safely, or that it had crashed on land in the northern hemisphere.

No trace has been found of MH370, in what has become one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history. Most of the passengers were Chinese.

Relatives of passengers aboard missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 issued a statement on Twitter-like platform Weibo, saying they were "watching the developments" on Reunion Island.

"We need 100 per cent confirmation [on the whereabouts of the missing plane]," they said.

They called on Australia to continue its search and rescue efforts, and urged Malaysia to immediately set up an aid centre, providing communication and psychological counselling services to the relatives of the passengers, as well as funds for their emergency expenses.

They also called for a criminal investigation led by an independent third-party.

A French official close to the investigation confirmed that French law enforcement officials were on site to examine the debris on Reunion, in the western Indian Ocean.

France’s air crash investigation agency, BEA, said it was already studying the debris but it was too early to say if it came from MH370.

READ MORE: Theory that plane spotted by Maldivian islanders was MH370 is crushed

The wreckage discovered on Reunion Island appears to resemble a wing part from a Boeing 777. Photo: Twitter/@PeurAvion

Search efforts for the Boeing 777, led by Australia, have focused on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia.

The last primary radar contact with MH370 placed its positon over the Andaman Sea about 370km northwest of the Malaysian city of Penang. Reunion is about 5,600km southwest of Penang.

At the United Nations, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters that he has sent a team to verify the identity of the wreckage. “Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can ever confirm that it is belonged to MH370,” he said.

French authorities urged caution.

“At this point in time, the BEA is studying the information on the airplane part found in La Reunion, in coordination with our Malaysian and Australian colleagues, and with the judicial authorities,” the BEA spokesman said in an email.

“The part has not yet been identified and it is not possible at this hour to ascertain whether the part is from a B777 and/or from MH370.”

INFOGRAPHIC: MH370's doomed journey from Kuala Lumpur

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) confirmed it was working with Boeing on identifying the debris.

“We’ve received some pictures of the item and we are having them assessed by the manufacturers as to what they may be,” ATSB spokesman Joe Hattley told Australian Associated Press.

The discovery is unlikely to alter the seabed search, said ATSB Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan, who is heading up the search effort in a remote patch of ocean far off the west coast of Australia. If the find proved to be part of the missing aircraft, it would remain consistent with the theory that the plane crashed within the 120,000 sq km search area, 1,800km southwest of Australia, he said.

“It doesn’t rule out our current search area if this were associated with MH370,” Dolan said. “It is entirely possible that something could have drifted from our current search area to that island.”

Boeing said it would not comment on the photos.

Another look at the wreckage. Photo: Twitter/@PeurAvion

The BBC quoted an aviation security expert who said the part had “incredible similarities” to a wing flap from a Boeing 777.

The BBC noted that there had been other crashes much closer to the island - however, none involved a Boeing 777 and no such plane is thought to have been lost at sea, other than MH370. 

It was well understood after the aircraft disappeared that if there was any floating debris from the plane, Indian Ocean currents would eventually bring it to the east coast of Africa, said aviation safety expert John Goglia, a former member of the US National Transportation Safety Board. But the debris imay not  provide much help in tracing the oceans currents back to the location of the main wreckage, he said.

“It’s going to be hard to say with any certainty where the source of this was,” he said. “It just confirms that the airplane is in the water and hasn’t been hijacked to some remote place and is waiting to be used for some other purpose. ... We haven’t lost any 777s anywhere else.”

A local official on Reunion cautioned about rushing to conclusions.

“People are getting ahead of themselves over this,” Eric Chesneau, an officer in the air transport police, said in response to speculation on social media. “It is more than likely plane debris, (but) we don’t know what exact part it may be.”

Additional reporting by Reuters and AFP

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