Debris in South Africa, Mauritius "almost certainly" from missing plane

May 12, 2016 8:29 AM

Investigators believe someone may have deliberately switched off the plane's transponder before diverting it thousands of miles off course, out over the Indian Ocean.

File picture shows French gendarmes and police inspecting a large piece of plane debris which was found on the beach in Saint-Andre, on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, July 29, 2015.

Two pieces of debris discovered in South Africa and the Mauritian island of Rodrigues are almost certainly from the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 jetliner, Malaysia's transport ministry said on Thursday.

Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board, shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, in one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.

"The team has confirmed that both pieces of debris from South Africa and Rodrigues Island are almost certainly from MH370," Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said in a statement.

Liow said the findings support results from a previous examination in March, during which the team confirmed that another piece of debris found in Mozambique was also almost certainly from MH370.

A first piece of the Boeing 777 washed up on the French island of Reunion in July 2015. Malaysia and French authorities confirmed the flaperon was from the aircraft.