Day 511 — Debris 'definitely' from lost flight

Confirmation that plane debris washed up on a remote Indian Ocean island is from missing Malaysian airlines MH370 appears imminent.

A team from aircraft maker Boeing has been dispatched to France to confirm that barnacle-encrusted debris is from the plane that disappeared in March last year with 239 people on board.

Sources close to Boeing have been quoted in the United States as saying the company believes the two-metre long wing part known as a flaperon is from MH370, but company experts would confirm it when they arrived at the offices of France's crash investigation agency laboratory in Toulouse over the weekend.

New debris washed ashore on the island of Reunion have revived hopes of unlocking one of aviation's biggest mysteries. Details are seen for a liquid soap container label, marked Jakarta - Indonesia, that was part of newly-discovered debris washed onto the beach at Saint-Andre, some 4,000km from the area where MH370 is thought to have gone down.