Debris in Mauritius to be examined by MH370 investigators in Australia

SYDNEY - A piece of debris found on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius will be examined by investigators to see if it came from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Australian officials said Sunday.

The discovery comes less than two weeks after officials confirmed that two pieces of debris found along the coast of Mozambique were almost certainly from the aircraft that vanished on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

“The Malaysian Government is working with officials from Mauritius to seek to take custody of the debris and arrange for its examination,” Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester said in a statement. “This debris is an item of interest however until the debris has been examined by experts it is not possible to ascertain its origin.”

Chester did not release any details of what the part looked like or where it would be examined. The two pieces of debris found in Mozambique were flown to Australia and examined by a team of investigators from Australia, Malaysia and Boeing.

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Australia is leading the search for the missing Boeing 777 in a desolate stretch of the Indian Ocean far off the country’s west coast, about 3,700 miles east of Mozambique and around 2,500 miles east of Mauritius. Authorities had predicted that any debris from the plane that isn’t on the ocean floor would eventually be carried by currents to the east coast of Africa.

Last year, a wing flap from the plane washed ashore on the island of Reunion, not far from Mauritius.