Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak today said that a piece of aircraft wreckage found on an Indian Ocean island last week is from missing flight MH370, solving the mystery of the plane that disappeared with 239 people on board more than a year ago.
"Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, 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 found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," Najib told reporters here at a special press conference.
The ill-fated Malaysia Airlines jet was carrying 239 crew and passengers, including five Indians, when it disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 last year.
The search operation had found no verified sign of the plane.
Last week a two-metre-long flaperon was found on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, near Madagascar. It was examined at an aeronautical test centre in Toulouse, France.
A flaperon is a part of the wing used to manage the lift and control the roll of an aircraft.
Najib announced that the joint France-Malaysia investigations confirmed the aircraft flaperon found on the island was part of the Boeing 777 aircraft.
"We now have physical evidence that, as I announced on 24th March last year, flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean," Najib said.
"MH370's disappearance marked us as a nation. We mourn with you, as a nation."
Flight MH370 is the only Boeing 777 to ever be lost at sea.
