France calls off search for MH370 wreckage off Reunion island

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Updated: Aug 18, 2015 18:19 IST

Investigators from France's air crash agency find debris that is 'almost certainly' from a Boeing 777, sparking hopes that the remains of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared last year, may have been found (AFP)

French authorities have called off their hunt for the wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 after air and sea searches for more than one week off its Reunion island in Indian Ocean yielded no results, media reported on Tuesday.

However, the island's top authority has said its search teams would maintain "vigilance".

A wing component (flaperon), washed up on the island on July 29, was confirmed by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to be part of the Beijing-bound Boeing 777 aircraft which went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people onboard.

The finding raised hopes of finally solving the mystery of what happened to the plane, prompting investigators to search a maritime surface of 10,000 sq km and scour the island's eastern coastline.

But the searches "have not led to the identification of anything that could have a link with a plane", the French state's representative on the island, Dominique Sorain, said in a statement.