Keeping an Eye on the Investigation

China keeping eye on investigation

China is closely observing the situation, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said today.

"We have noticed the reports and are wasting no time in obtaining and checking the information," Hong said in a press release.

According to French media, the debris was discovered by people cleaning the beach. A witness said the wreckage was "encrusted with shells".

Wife of passenger: "I don't believe debris belongs to MH370"

Zhang Qian's husband was on the missing plane and heard the upsetting news last night.

The 28-year-old told Sky News: "For all those times, we deeply believed the plane has gone missing but our loved ones are still alive.

"Even now, I still don't believe that debris belongs to MH370, and the conclusion that the plane crashed into the ocean.

"I am just worried the official will give this conclusion in a rush for some reason – I can't accept it."

Currents may have propelled wreckage thousands of miles

Vast, rotating currents sweeping the southern Indian Ocean could have deposited wreckage from a missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet near Africa, thousands of kilometres from where it is thought to have crashed, oceanographers said today.

If the Reunion wreckage is confirmed to be part of the missing Boeing 777, experts will try to model its drift to retrace where the debris could have come from, although they cautioned it was unlikely to help in narrowing down the plane's final resting place beyond the vast swathe of ocean off Australia that has been the focus of the search for months.

"This wreckage has been in the water, if it is MH370, for well over a year so it could have moved so far that its not going to be that helpful in pinpointing precisely where the aircraft is," Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters.

"It certainly would suggest the search area is roughly in the right place."

Wife of missing crew member is torn by news

The wife of the in-flight supervisor for the missing MH370 plane, Jacquita Gonzales, told the BBC that she doesn't known how to feel about the news.

She said: "A part of me hopes that it is (MH370) so that I could have some closure and bury my husband properly but the other part of me says 'no, no, no' because there is still hope."

There were 239 passengers and crew - most of whom were from China - on board when the plane disappeared.