The debris found in Mozambique is mostly likely from the missing MH370 plane -here’s what this means

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has announced today that two pieces of debris over the last few months are in fact from the missing aircraft Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which vanished from the radar on March 8, 2014 and contained 239 passengers.

Last year on December 27, debris No. 1, a “flap track fairing segment,” was found off the coast of Nakhon Si Thammarat province in Thailand. A fisherman found it and immediately reported it to the authorities, yet at the time they could only speculate that it was from MH370.

Fast forward to February of this year, and No. 2, a “horizontal stabilizer panel segment” was discovered by a charted boat off the coast of Mozambique, about 135 miles from where the first one was found. At that point, family members and loved ones of the individuals who were on the aircraft sought to raise $5 million in an attempt to conduct more research and find the answers once and for all. But at the time, just as with debris piece No. 1, officials said they couldn’t yet be sure this was connected to MH370.

Today, however, it has been confirmed that both debris pieces are connected to the plane. Whether this brings closure to those who lost their loved ones, we can’t know. Jiang Hui, whose mother was on board, spoke out and had this to say about the news:

“Finding the plane debris does not equal to finding our loved ones. If they can find debris as far away as Africa, the authorities should reassess their searching area and reassess their hypothesis.”

Officials responded saying that, according to calculations, it does make sense that these two pieces of debris would be found where they were. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to offer much solace to Hui and his family. We can only hope that they are able to recover more information as time goes on, and that those who are still mourning the disappearance of their friends and family can finally be privy to some answers.