Part of the aircraft wing found on
Reunion Island is from the missing MH370 plane, Malaysian Prime Minister
Najib Razak has confirmed.
Mr Najib said international experts examining the debris in France had "conclusively confirmed" it was from the aircraft.
The Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people veered off course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.
The debris was found on the remote French Indian Ocean island a week ago.
The
plane is believed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean -
though no evidence had been found despite a massive search operation.
"It
is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you that an international
team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris
[...] is indeed MH370," Mr Najib told reporters.
"We now have physical evidence that [...] flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean," he added.
Mr
Najib said he hoped the discovery "will at least bring certainty to the
families" of the victims, saying the burden they had faced was
"unspeakable".
'Very strong indications'
French
prosecutor Serge Mackowiak later confirmed the wing fragment, known as a
flaperon, was from a Boeing 777 - the same make and model as the
missing Malaysian airliner.
He said initial tests showed there
were "very strong indications" that it was from flight MH370. But he
said confirmation would only come after further tests on the fragment,
which would begin on Thursday.
The debris was found last week on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion
"[Investigators] will try to do
it as soon as possible in order to provide total and reliable
information to the family of victims, who are on our minds at the
moment," Mr Mackowiak added.
The debris is being examined at an aeronautical test centre near Toulouse.
There
is little doubt now that the flaperon will be declared the first
evidence of MH370 in the coming days as no other Boeing 777s are thought
to have crashed in the region.
Analysis: Hugh Schofield, BBC News, Paris
The
Paris prosecutor failed to be as categorical as the Malaysian prime
minister in asserting that the wing piece does come from MH370. All he
said was that there are very strong reasons to presume that it is from
the missing plane.
That does not mean that the prosecutor has
any reason to doubt the prime minister's conclusion - simply that he is
exercising supreme legal caution.
In the coming days there will
be more tests on the flaperon and it's expected that these will prove
the piece's origin. After that, it will probably be many months before
deeper analysis allows any tentative deductions about how the plane may
have come down. Relatives of the victims were told about the initial results shortly before Mr Najib's news conference.
Jackqita
Gomes, the wife of crew member Patrick Gomes, said: "Now that they have
confirmed it as MH370, I know my husband is no longer of this world but
they just can't leave it with this one flaperon."
"We urge them to continue searching until they find the plane and bring it back," she told reporters.
She said she still hoped to get her husband's body back so that the family can give him a proper burial and say goodbye.
Simulation of where debris in search area could end up
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