Fragments 'almost certainly' from missing MH370 plane found on Mauritius, South Africa beaches

On 12 May, two fragments which are being speculated to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were retrieved from the beaches of South Africa and Mauritius. Authorities have declared that they're 'almost certain' that the fragments were a part of flight MH370, that had gone missing on 8 March, 2014, on its way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau on Thursday said a piece of the engine cowling featuring a Rolls-Royce stencil, which was found in South Africa earlier this year, is "almost certainly" from the Boeing 777 that went missing more than two years ago with 239 people on board, reports the Guardian.

The second piece, which was found eight days later on 30 March in Mauritius, is "almost certainly" a panel segment from MH370's main cabin.

According to Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the pattern, colour and texture of the internal panel laminate was only used by Malaysia Airlines on Boeing 777s and 747s.

"There is no record of the laminate being used by any other Boeing 777 customer," the Guardian quoted Australian Transport Safety Bureau report as saying.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has preserved the marine ecology attached to both pieces.

The announcement means a total of five pieces of debris from the Malaysian Airlines' jet have now been discovered in various spots around the Indian Ocean since it vanished.

The investigators had in March confirmed that two pieces of debris found along Mozambique's coast were almost certainly from the aircraft.

A pat of the wing from the plane washed ashore on France's Reunion Island last year.

The mystery behind the missing flight is that it is believed to have crashed in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean. But the ongoing search has found nothing conclusive so far.

So far, more than 1,05,000 sq km of the southern Indian Ocean seafloor has been scoured for the missing flight.

The governments of Malaysia, Australia and China maintain that the search area will not be expanded beyond the current 1,20,000 sq km zone because of the absence of credible new information.

--ANI