A large piece of debris discovered on the island of Pemba, off the coast of Tanzania, in June was from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370. A search of more than two years has turned up few traces of the Boeing 777 aircraft that disappeared in March 2014, with 239 passengers and crew on board, soon after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, bound for Beijing. The debris, an outboard flap, will be examined further to see if it can yield any insight into the circumstances around the missing plane, the Malaysian transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, said. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) report on the new wing flap said it “was confirmed as originating from the aircraft registered 9M-MRO and operating as MH370.” It identified the component as “the inboard section of a Boeing 777 right, outboard flap.”
The part number information on the large piece of debris, which helped to confirm it belonged to MH370. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Investigators have previously confirmed a piece of plane debris found on the French island of Réunion in July 2015 as being part of the missing MH370. They are examining several other pieces of debris found in Mozambique, South Africa and Rodrigues Island, a territory of Mauritius. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s analysis of several pieces of debris led them to conclude that four of them were “almost certainly” from the missing plane. Search officials expect more wreckage to wash up in the months ahead. But so far, none of the debris has helped narrow down the precise location of the main underwater wreckage. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau anticipates search crews will complete their sweep of the 120,000-square kilometer (46,000-square mile) search zone in the Indian Ocean off Australia’s west coast by December. Oceanographers have been analysing the wing flaps from Réunion and Tanzania in the hope of identifying a possible new search area through drift modelling. But a new search would require a new funding commitment. Malaysia, Australia and China agreed in July that the A$160m hunt would be suspended once the current stretch of ocean was exhausted, unless new evidence emerged that would pinpoint a specific location of the aircraft. Earlier this week, relatives of some of the passengers on board the plane met officials from the transport bureau and asked that more potential debris found around the Indian Ocean be examined. The families believe those items may help provide clues to the plane’s location.
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