KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A piece of a wing that washed up on an Indian Ocean island beach last week was part of the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, Malaysia said on Thursday, confirming the discovery of the first trace of the plane since it vanished last year. 
 
 “Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370,” Prime Minister Najib Razak said in an early morning televised address. 
 
 “I would like to assure all those affected by this tragedy that the government of Malaysia is committed to do everything within our means to find out the truth of what happened,” Najib said. 
 
 The announcement, by providing the first direct evidence that the plane crashed in the ocean, closes a chapter in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history but still gives families of the 239 victims little clue as to why. 
 
 “It’s not the end,” said Jacquita Gonzales, who lost her husband Patrick Gomes, a flight attendant on board the aircraft. 
 
 “Although they found something, you know, it’s not the end. They still need to find the whole plane and our spouses as well. We still want them back,” she said. 
 
 The airline described the discovery as “a major breakthrough for us in resolving the disappearance of MH370. 
 
 “We expect and hope that there would be more objects to be found which would be able to help resolve this mystery,” it said in a statement issued as soon as Najib had spoken. 
 
 The fragment of wing known as a flaperon was flown to mainland France after being found last week covered in barnacles on a beach on France’s Indian Ocean island of Reunion. 
 
 Despite the Malaysian confirmation it was part of MH370, prosecutors in France stopped short of declaring they were certain, saying only that there was a “very strong presumption” that it was the case. 
 
 Paris Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said this was based on technical data supplied by both the manufacturer and airline but gave no indication that experts had discovered a serial number or unique markings that would put the link beyond doubt. 
 
 Boeing representatives confirmed that the flaperon came from a 777 jet “due to its technical characteristics, mentioning the color, the structure of the joints,” he said. 
 
 Secondly, Malaysia Airlines was able to provide documentation of the actual aircraft used on flight MH370. 
 
 French gendarmes and police inspect 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. REUTERS/Zinfos974/Prisca Bigot 
 
 “On this basis, it was possible for a connection to be made between the object examined by the experts and the flaperon of the Boeing 777 of MH370,” Mackowiak told reporters in Paris. 
 
 He said more analysis would be carried out on Thursday, but he could not say when further results would be announced. 
 
 A fragment of luggage also found in Reunion would be examined by French police as soon as possible, he added. 
 
 “YET TO BEGIN” 
 
 Investigators looking at the wing flap are likely to start by putting thin slices of metal under a high-powered microscope, to see subtle clues in the metal’s crystal structure about how it deformed on impact, said Hans Weber, president of TECOP International, Inc., an aerospace technology consulting firm based in San Diego, California. 
 
 Later, investigators would probably clean the piece and “do a full physical examination, using ultrasonic analysis before they open it up to see if there’s any internal damage,” Weber said. “That might take quite awhile. A month or months.” 
 
 John Goglia, a former board member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, told Reuters: “The real work is yet to begin”. 
 
 “They will identify everything they can from the metal: damage, barnacles, witness marks on the metal. They’re going to look at the brackets (that held the flaperon in place) to see how they broke. From that they can tell the direction and attitude of the airplane when it hit. There’s a lot to be told from the metal.” 
 
 However, experts said the cause of the disaster may remain beyond the reach of investigators until other debris or data and cockpit voice recorders are recovered. 
 
 “A wing’s moving surfaces give you far fewer clues than bigger structures like the rudder, for example. As a single piece of evidence, it is likely to reveal quite little other than it comes from MH370,” said a former investigator who has participated in several international probes of crashes at sea. 
 
 The examination of the part is being carried out under the direction of a judge at an aeronautical test facility run by the French military at Balma, a suburb of the southwestern city of Toulouse, and witnessed by Malaysian and other officials. 
 
 Officials from the United States, Australia, China, Britain and Singapore as well as manufacturer Boeing were also on hand. Boeing said it was providing technical expertise. 
 
 Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 last year while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, about 3,700 km (2,300 miles) from Reunion. 
 
 Slideshow (5 Images) 
 
 The Boeing 777 was minutes into its scheduled flight when it disappeared from civil radar. Investigators believe that someone may have deliberately switched off the aircraft’s transponder, diverted it thousands of miles off course, and deliberately crashed into the ocean off Australia. 
 
 A $90 million hunt along a rugged 60,000 sq km patch of sea floor 1,600 km (1,000 miles) west of the Australian city of Perth has yielded nothing. 
 
 The search has been extended to another 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq miles) and Malaysian and Australian authorities say this will cover 95 percent of MH370’s flight path. ||||| KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia said on Thursday paint color and maintenance-record matches proved that a piece of wing found on the shore of an Indian Ocean island was part of the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which vanished last year. 
 
 Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said investigators on the French-governed island of Reunion had collected more aircraft debris, including a plane window and aluminum foil, but there was no confirmation they also belonged to the missing plane. 
 
 With the first trace of the plane confirmed, Malaysia has asked the governments of neighboring Mauritius and Madagascar to help widen the search area, he told reporters. 
 
 Earlier, Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed that the piece of debris was from the Boeing 777 airliner that was bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers and crew on board when it went missing. 
 
 "Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," Najib said in a televised address. 
 
 The airline described the find as "a major breakthrough". 
 
 The first piece of direct evidence that the plane crashed in the sea closed a chapter in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history. 
 
 But exactly what happened remains unknown and Najib's announcement did not appear to represent any kind of resolution for the families of those on board, most of whom were Chinese. 
 
 The fragment of wing known as a flaperon was flown to mainland France after being found last week covered in barnacles on a Reunion beach. 
 
 French authorities said they would step up efforts on Friday to find more debris off Reunion. That will include deploying a military aircraft as well as more police at sea and on the shore. 
 
 Despite the Malaysian confirmation, prosecutors in France stopped short of declaring they were certain, saying only that there was a "very strong presumption". 
 
 Deputy Paris Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said this was based on technical data supplied by both the manufacturer and airline but gave no indication that experts had discovered a serial number or unique markings that would put the link beyond doubt. 
 
 Representatives of manufacturer Boeing confirmed that the flaperon came from a 777 jet, he said, and Malaysia Airlines provided documentation of the missing aircraft. 
 
 Mackowiak told reporters more analysis would be carried out on Thursday, and a fragment of luggage also found in Reunion would be examined by French police. 
 
 "We appreciate the French team and their support and respect their decision to continue with the verification," Liow said, adding that Malaysian experts were convinced the flaperon was from MH370 because a seal on the part matched a maintenance record and the paint was the same color. 
 
 SEARCH FOR CLUES 
 
 A group of families from China said French investigators and Boeing must also say definitively the wing piece was from the plane. 
 
 "We are not living in denial ... but we owe it to our loved ones not to declare them lost without 100 percent certainty!" the families said on their microblog. 
 
 China's foreign ministry urged Malaysia to keep investigating and to "safeguard the legitimate rights and interests" of relatives. 
 
 Investigators looking at the wing flap at an aeronautical facility in the French city of Toulouse are likely to start by putting slices of metal under a high-powered microscope, to see clues in its crystal structure about how it deformed on impact, said Hans Weber, president of TECOP International, Inc., an aerospace technology consulting firm. 
 
 They would probably then "do a full physical examination, using ultrasonic analysis before they open it up to see if there's any internal damage", Weber said. 
 
 "That might take quite a while. A month or months." 
 
 John Goglia, a former board member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, told Reuters much could be learned from examining the metal and how the brackets that held the flaperon in place had broken. 
 
 However, other experts cautioned that the cause of the disaster may remain beyond the reach of investigators until other debris or data and cockpit voice recorders are recovered. 
 
 "Debris such as the flaperon can only increase our understanding of the last seconds of the flight," said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at industry publication Flightglobal. 
 
 Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, and is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, about 3,700 km (2,300 miles) east of Reunion. 
 
 Investigators believe that someone may have deliberately switched off the aircraft's transponder, diverted it off course and deliberately crashed into the sea. 
 
 An initial search of a 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq miles) patch of sea floor has been extended to another 60,000 sq km. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Siva Govindasamy, Praveen Menon, Emmanuel Jarry, Ingrid Melander, Ebrahim Harris, Alwyn Scott, Michael Martina and Lincoln Feast; Writing by Paul Tait and John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Birsel) ||||| Malaysia's transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, said Thursday that a team of investigators has collected more plane debris, including aircraft seat cushions, window panes and aluminum foil, on the French island of Reunion. 
 
 But the minister said he could not confirm that the items belong to Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which went missing while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 people on board. 
 
 "I can only ascertain that it's plane debris," Liow told reporters, adding that there were "many items" collected by the Malaysian team on the island in the Indian Ocean. Reunion is the same island where part of a wing was discovered last week was confirmed on Thursday as belonging to MH370. 
 
 Liow said the new debris has been sent "to the French authorities for verification," and that Malaysia has asked 
 
 to comb their beaches for possible debris. 
 
 Earlier on Thursday, 
 
 that a piece of an aircraft wing discovered on the island was from MH370. 
 
 "Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a very heavy heart that an 
 
 that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," Razak said. 
 
 The discovery of the MH370 wing marked the first time evidence related to the aircraft's disappearance had emerged. 
 
 Relatives' anger over lack of answers 
 
 The passengers' relatives have been critical of the Malaysian government's response, with some attacking Razak's administration for its inability to provide answers. 
 
 "I would like to assure all those affected by this tragedy that the government of Malaysia is committed to do everything within our means to find out the truth of what happened," the Malaysian prime minister said. 
 
 However, deputy Paris prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said that there is a "very high probability" that the wing piece - a flaperon - is part of missing flight MH370, adding that examinations needed continue in order to verifiably rule the link. 
 
 Malaysia Airlines issued a statement following Razak's announcement, saying that the families of passengers and crew members had been informed of the discovery. 
 
 mh/sms (AFP, AP)
– The piece of plane wing confirmed to be from MH370 has company. In addition to a suitcase, Malaysia's transportation minister says "many items," including seat cushions, aluminum foil, and a window, have washed up on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, but experts have yet to prove the items are from the vanished jet, reports Deutsche Welle. "I can only ascertain that it's plane debris," he says. Malaysia yesterday confirmed the wing part, or flaperon, belonged to MH370 based on its paint color and a seal matching a maintenance record, reports Reuters. French experts who are continuing to study the flaperon, however, say there is simply a "very strong supposition" that it came from MH370. Malaysia has now asked neighboring areas, including Mauritius and Madagascar, to search for potential debris. Rather than bring closure, the find has incensed some Chinese relatives of those on board the Boeing 777 who streamed to the Beijing headquarters of Malaysia Airlines today, the Guardian reports. One woman says Prime Minister Najib Razak, who broke the news, was speaking "nonsense. I just want to kill him." "I don't believe it," says another, adding 515 days is "enough time for them to have produced fake debris." The Australian agency leading the search for MH370 says it will continue to focus on 46,000 square miles of seabed west of Australia, noting the debris is consistent with a crash site in that area. What's next for the flaperon? Investigators will likely analyze thin pieces under a microscope to see how it was broken, then "open it up to see if there's any internal damage," an expert says. The study could take "a month or months."