Strong presumptions that island wreckage from MH370: France

Deputy prosecutor Serge Mackowiak announced here that there are "very strong presumptions" that the plane wreckage found on the French Reunion Island was from the missing flight MH370.

According to Mackowiak, representatives from Boeing have confirmed that the flaperon, which was found on the island, "came from a Boeing 777 due to its technical characteristics", Xinhua reported.

"Representatives of Malaysia Airlines have provided elements of the technical documentation of flight MH370, which allowed a comparison between the part examined by experts and the flaperon of flight MH370," the deputy prosecutor said at a press conference on Wednesday.

The flight, a Boeing 777-200, went missing on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with a total of 239 passengers onboard, most of them Chinese nationals.

After several hours of identification in a military lab in Toulouse, the deputy prosecutor declared that there are "very strong presumptions" that the piece of plane wreckage found came from the missing flight MH370.

He also said that further analyses would be conducted on Thursday, and he could not specify "at what time the results will be revealed".

Just before the press conference of the prosecutor, however, Malaysian Prime Minister confirmed that the wreckage comes from the missing MH370.

"Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," he announced.

Investigators and experts from France, Malaysia, Australia and Boeing participated in the identification of the probable missing MH370 wreckage which arrived on Wednesday in Toulouse.

The debris is about 2-2.5 metres long.