Plane Debris 'Almost Certainly' From MH370

wo pieces of debris recently discovered along the coast of Mozambique are "almost certainly" to have come from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Australian officials have said.

Analysis of the parts by an international investigation team showed the paint, stencilling and materials are consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft.

The discovery backs up the theory that the plane went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

However, a spokesman for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said: "Close examination of the debris might possibly give some additional information relative to the search, but it's unlikely."

The debris was found by a South African family

Flight MH370 disappeared on 8 March 2014 with 239 on board and is believed to have crashed somewhere in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean about 3,700 miles (6,000km) east of Mozambique.

Until now, the only other confirmed piece of debris from the aircraft was a wing part that washed ashore on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion last year.

Investigators from Australia, Malaysia, and Boeing will examine the debris to see if it can offer any hints about what happened on board the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

These could include structural deformities that could show the angle at which the plane entered the ocean, or markings which could indicate a mid-air explosion.

However, it is widely thought the best way of finding out exactly what happened to the plane is to locate the main underwater wreckage, which would hold the flight data recorders.

Crews have already covered more than 70% of the search zone, and expect to complete their sweep of the area by the end of June.

One of the newest pieces being examined had been discovered by a South African teenager who was on a family holiday in Mozambique.

His parents had dismissed the debris as trash, but nonetheless he brought it back home to look at it further.

It was placed in storage along with the family's fishing gear and was nearly forgotten - but the boy contacted the authorities when he read about the flaperon found on Reunion.