Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed on Wednesday that plane debris found on the shore of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean belongs to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Reuters reports.
The large object, now understood to be part of the crashed plane, was found on July 29 on the small French island east of Madagascar.
Authorities and aviation experts quickly determined that the piece appeared to be from a Boeing 777 -- the same type of aircraft as MH370 -- and was possibly part of its wing. On August 3, The Malaysian government confirmed that the object, a wing piece known as a flaperon, belonged to a plane of that type.
Experts from multiple nations gathered in the French city of Toulouse and began examining the debris on August 5. Analysts hoped that the piece could provide clues to the location of MH370, and studied elements such as the unique use of paint on the flaperon to determine whether it matched Malaysia Airlines planes.
The search for MH370 has been ongoing since the flight abruptly lost contact with ground crew and shifted course in the early hours of March 8, 2014. The mysterious disappearance of the plane and the 239 people it carried on board spurred an international search, but turned up little results.
The search area shifted several times throughout the investigation and finally settled on tens of thousands square miles off the west coast of Australia. Several promising leads turned out unsuccesful. Objects found in the southern Indian Ocean and believed to have been tied to the plane ended up not being part of MH370.
In May of last year, Australian authorities ruled out a search area where 'pings' thought to have been sent out by the plane's black box were heard.
Malaysian authorities believed that the debris found on Reunion island could have been carried from the crash site to the shore by ocean currents.
"The location is consistent with the drift analysis provided to the Malaysian investigation team, which showed a route from the southern Indian Ocean to Africa," Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement on July 30.
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