A fragment of plane wing discovered in Mauritius in May has been confirmed as coming from missing plane Malaysia Airlines MH370, Australia’s Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said in a statement on Friday.
It is the third piece of debris to be definitively linked to MH370, Australia’s transport minister Darren Chester said Friday.
“It does not, however, provide information that can be used to determine a specific location of the aircraft,” Chester said.
The plane wing fragment was discovered in Mauritius on 10 May 2016, and was delivered to the ATSB for investigation.
An “‘OL’ part identifier” was legible on the plane piece, the ATSB said, which allowed investigators to definitively identify the wreckage.
Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 vanished on March 8, 2014, after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a flight towards Beijing with 239 people on board. The investigation into its disappearance is ongoing.
MH370 debris found in Tanzania, Reunion Island
Two previous pieces of airplane wreckage have been confirmed as coming from MH370 — a flaperon discovered on Reunion Island in July 2015 and an outboard wing flap found in Tanzania in June 2016.
The Reunion Island wreckage was the first piece of MH370 debris discovered.
Since July 2015, about six pieces of wreckage have been confirmed as likely coming from the missing plane, although not all pieces could be completely verified.
This includes two items of debris found on the Mozambique coast in December 2015 and February 2016, each considered “almost certainly” from MH370.
A seventh piece of debris found in Madagascar, covered in burn marks, may also come from the missing plane but has yet to be verified.
