Debris from South Africa and Mauritius “almost certainly” belongs to MH370

The Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai today confirmed that the debris found in South Africa and Mauritius “almost certainly” belong to the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared on Mar. 8, 2014 with 239 people on board.

The two parts, one stamped with a Rolls Royce logo and the other, an inner panel of the aircraft, have been examined by an international team of experts in Australia.

The Malaysian team announced Thursday in a statement that the investigation has concluded that both pieces were part of the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

“The team has confirmed that both pieces of debris from South Africa and Rodrigues Island are almost certainly from MH370,” said the Malaysian minister.

The debris discovered on the east coast of Mozambique are a wing flap and a horizontal stabilizer with an 9MNMRO plate, indicating that it belong to the Malaysian airline Boeing 777.

These four fragments add to another wing part which was found in July 2015 on the French island of Reunion, east of Madagascar, the first tangible evidence that the Boeing 777 crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Australia leads an operation, in which Malaysia and China also participate, to search for the wreckage of MH370 in an 120,000squarekilometer area of the Indian Ocean off the Western Australia coast.

The minister said Thursday that the countries remain “fully committed” to finding the aircraft.

Flight MH370 disappeared 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing after, according to the official investigation, someone shut off all communication systems and which later could have crashed into the sea when it ran out of fuel.