WATCH: The Malaysian Minister of Transportation, Liow Tiong Lai, said he has sent a team to investigate what is believe to be aircraft debris found near Reunion Island to see if it belongs to MH370.
TORONTO – A U.S. official says investigators have a “high degree of confidence” that a photo of aircraft debris that washed up on Reunion Island, off the coast of Madagascar, is of a wing component unique to the Boeing 777, the same model of aircraft as the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370.
The Associated Press reports investigators, including one with Boeing, have identified the component as a “flaperon” from the edge of a 777 wing.
The plane debris was found Wednesday morning on the remote island.
According to local media, island workers found a piece of an airplane wing, measuring about two metres long by one metre wide.
Photos show police and municipal workers examining the large piece of debris before moving to Roland Garros Airport, local media reported.
The debris is similar to a part of a Boeing 777, the same model of jetliner of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.
Although nothing has been confirmed, investigators said the piece that was discovered this morning had been in the water for quite some time.
“It was covered in shells, so one would say it had been in the water a long time,” the Agence France-Presse reported a witness as saying.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters at the United Nations a team has been sent to verify the identity of the plane wreckage.
“Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can ever confirm that it is belonged to MH370,” he said. “So we dispatched a team to investigate on this issue.”
In June 2009, a Yemenia Air flight crashed off the African coast, killing more than 150 people on board.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board.
The jetliner veered sharply off course and flew for hours with its communications systems disabled before disappearing.
Several ships scoured more than 60,000-square-kilometre area of the Indian Ocean, about 1,800 kilometres west of Australia.
–with a file from The Associated Press
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