Two plane parts discovered on Mozambique are highly likely to have come from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the Australian government confirmed.
Darren Chester, the minister for infrastructure and transport, said in a statement Thursday that the debris was “almost certainly” from the missing aircraft, which vanished without a trace more than two years ago.
The debris, which was recently flown to Australia for analysis, was found separately by members of the public, the BBC reported. One fragment was discovered in February by a civilian U.S. investigator while the other was found in December by a South African tourist.
Chester had said previously that the two discoveries were “consistent with drift modeling” of how ocean currents may have moved the debris.
MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board.
It’s believed that the plane, which had been flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, crashed in the Indian Ocean. According to Reuters, international investigators have been searching for the jet across 120,000 square kilometers of seafloor.
Chester said Thursday that there were 25,000 square kilometers of the search area still left to go.
“The search for MH370 continues,” Chester said. “We are focused on completing this task and remain hopeful the aircraft will be found.”
Investigators found the first trace of the missing plane in July 2015, when the jet's barnacle-encrusted flaperon washed up on the shore of the island of Réunion. A beach-cleaning crew discovered that fragment.
