Sydney

AUSTRALIAN authorities said on Thursday that they were confident that the search for MH370 was being carried out in the right area and that the plane would be found after Malaysia confirmed that debris on an Indian Ocean island was from the missing flight. The debris, part of a wing known as a flaperon, found on Reunion "does seem to indicate that the plane did come down, more or less where we thought it did, and it suggests that for the first time we might be a little bit closer to solving this baffling mystery", Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters Thursday.

Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the agency leading the search in the remote Indian Ocean far off the west coast of the island continent, added that "we're confident that we're looking in the right area and we'll find the aircraft there". But Mr Dolan told ABC radio that it was "too early to tell" what happened to the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet which disappeared 17 months ago, and that "close examination (of the flaperon) is what's necessary to access how much we can learn".