Malaysia says it has sent a team to the French Indian ocean island of Reunion, to investigate whether debris which washed up there is from missing flight MH370.
Investigators had, however, gotten a new ray of hope 16 months after flight MH370 went missing.
The Malaysia airlines Boeing 777, vanished without a trace in March 2014. There were 239 people on board the Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight.
Aviation experts said that the debris looked like a wing component from a Boeing 777, known as a flaperon.
But Malaysia airlines said it would be “premature” to speculate on its origin.
There were 227 passengers on the flight, including 153 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.
Transport Minister, Liow Tiong Lai, said “Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can further confirm whether it belongs to MH370”
He added, “So we have dispatched a team to investigate on this issues and we hope that we can identify it as soon as possible.”
During the initial days of the search for the plane, there were several reports of possible debris sightings in the waters closer to where authorities believed the plane went down, but none of those was actual wreckage.
Sarah Bajc, whose partner, Philip Wood, was on MH370, said her heart had been in her throat for most of the day.
“If ultimately this is the piece of the wing, then, that little thread of hope that I have been holding on to, will have to break. And reality would have to take over.
“But, yeah, up until now, I and most of the family members have continued to believe that until we have a body, we can’t give up hoping they will still come back.”
