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MH370 mystery: New debris not plane part; Malaysia seeks help 

Mr Liow earlier confirmed that the object found on a beach at St Andre on Wednesday was a wing flap from a Boeing 777 – the same type of aircraft as the one that vanished.

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Experts are trying to determine whether the part comes from the plane, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

Officials from Toulouse have not yet commented on the Malaysian announcement.

French police officers inspect a piece of debris from a plane in Saint-Andre, Reunion Island.

“If more debris can be found it will aid the experts in the substantive analysis of what happened to the missing plane MH370″.

However, if the flaperon is confirmed as belonging to MH370, it will be the first piece of concrete evidence that the Malaysia Airlines flight crashed into the sea around 16 months ago. Analysts at the French aviation laboratory are working on the details whether or not they can find some chemicals that may help in the investigation.

Confirming that the part is from MH370 would establish “really beyond any doubt” that Flight 370 ended its journey in the Indian Ocean, Australia’s Truss said.

Other bits of debris are turning up on Reunion Island, but officials have discounted many of them.

Dolan said last week that he is “increasingly confident but not yet certain” that the debris is from MH370.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told AFP that civil aviation authorities were reaching out to their counterparts in other Indian Ocean territories to be on the lookout for further debris that could provide “more clues to the missing aircraft”.

On Sunday, several pieces of debris sparked excitement, one of which was believed by locals to be from a plane door.

A Malaysian official and aviation experts say it is nearly certainly part of a Boeing 777.

“There will also be the Civil Air Safety Bureau representative as well as the Air Transport Division of the Gendarmerie, which is part of the French Ministry of Defense”, she said.

A fragment of luggage that was also found in the area is being flown into France with the aircraft debris and will be sent to a unit outside Paris that specialises in DNA tests.

A local worker from the Indian Ocean found the tattered bag that can possibly be owned by one of the passengers.

But the wreckage is unlikely to help with the underwater search for the remains of the plane, which is taking place in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, far off the western coast of Australia.

Investigators believe someone on board the flight may have switched off its transponder, which allows it to be located, before flying it thousands of miles off its intended flight path.

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The Agence France-Presse news agency said on Sunday that one of its photographers had also seen a mangled piece of metal inscribed with two Chinese characters, attached to a leather-covered handle and measuring 100 sq cm being placed into an iron case and carried away.

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              More suspected MH370 wreckage found