St Denis, France (BBN)-A second piece of suspected plane debris has washed ashore on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, after a wing part suspected to come from the missing flight MH370 was found on Wednesday.
The object, believed to be the door of an aircraft, was discovered just south of the city of St Denis, reports BBC.
It is said to have writing on it and possibly some illustration.
The Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared last March with 239 people on board.
Malaysia’s transport ministry says it now wants to expand the search for more debris around Reunion.
Boeing 777
An Australian-led search effort for the plane has so far focused on a vast area of the southern Indian Ocean about 4,000km (2,500 miles) to the east of Reunion.
No physical trace of the aircraft has been found.
However, Malaysia’s transport minister has confirmed that the object found on a beach at St Andre on Wednesday is a wing flap from a Boeing 777 – the same type of aircraft as the one that vanished.
“This has been verified by French authorities together with aircraft manufacturer Boeing,” Liow Tiong Lai said on Sunday.
The piece has gone to France, where investigators in the city of Toulouse will seek to establish if it came from MH370. They will begin their work this Wednesday.
Fragments of a suitcase found on the same beach are also to be examined.
The centre in Toulouse was also involved in analysing debris from the Air France flight AF447, which crashed on the way to Paris from Brazil in 2009, killing 228 people.
Investigators believe MH370 veered off course on the way to Beijing and crashed into the sea – but they do not know why.
In January Malaysian authorities declared that all on board were presumed dead.
Its estimated last location was based on “pings” sent from the aircraft that were detected by satellite.
BBN/SK/AD