MH370 update: Debris from South Africa, Mauritius 'almost certainly' from missing Malaysia Airlines plane

Malaysia on Thursday said the pieces of debris recently found in South Africa and the Mauritian island of Rodrigues are "almost certainly" from the Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight that went missing two years ago. So far, only four pieces of debris found in different parts of the Indian Ocean have been confirmed as likely to be from the plane. 

The two pieces of the plane debris had been discovered separately at the Mossel Bay in South Africa and the Rodrigues Island in Mauritius in March this year. The Malaysian government had sought the help of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is leading the underwater search for the Boeing 777 aircraft, to identify the debris. 

In a report on Thursday, the ATSB said that one of the parts was a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 engine cowling segment, which was "almost certainly" from the [MH370] aircraft, while the other piece was a panel segment from the main cabin of the plane. 

"The team has confirmed that both pieces of debris from South Africa and Rodrigues Island are almost certainly from MH370," Malaysia's Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said in a statement, according to Reuters.

The near confirmation of the two pieces as being from the missing MH370 flight brings the total parts of the plane that have been identified so far to four. In March, the Australian government had confirmed that the debris recovered from Mozambique, that comprised a fragment with the words "No Step" printed on one side and another piece of metal, was "highly likely to have come from MH370."

Before that, the flaperon found last year on La Reunion island in the Pacific Ocean was "the only piece of debris that has been conclusively identified as coming from MH370."

However, two years since the Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight went missing with 239 people on board, there are still no clear answers as to what happened to the plane and where it possibly crashed.