Malaysia's transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, said Thursday that a team of investigators has collected more plane debris, including aircraft seat cushions, window panes and aluminum foil, on the French island of Reunion. 
 
 But the minister said he could not confirm that the items belong to Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which went missing while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 people on board. 
 
 "I can only ascertain that it's plane debris," Liow told reporters, adding that there were "many items" collected by the Malaysian team on the island in the Indian Ocean. Reunion is the same island where part of a wing was discovered last week was confirmed on Thursday as belonging to MH370. 
 
 Liow said the new debris has been sent "to the French authorities for verification," and that Malaysia has asked 
 
 to comb their beaches for possible debris. 
 
 Earlier on Thursday, 
 
 that a piece of an aircraft wing discovered on the island was from MH370. 
 
 "Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a very heavy heart that an 
 
 that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," Razak said. 
 
 The discovery of the MH370 wing marked the first time evidence related to the aircraft's disappearance had emerged. 
 
 Relatives' anger over lack of answers 
 
 The passengers' relatives have been critical of the Malaysian government's response, with some attacking Razak's administration for its inability to provide answers. 
 
 "I would like to assure all those affected by this tragedy that the government of Malaysia is committed to do everything within our means to find out the truth of what happened," the Malaysian prime minister said. 
 
 However, deputy Paris prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said that there is a "very high probability" that the wing piece - a flaperon - is part of missing flight MH370, adding that examinations needed continue in order to verifiably rule the link. 
 
 Malaysia Airlines issued a statement following Razak's announcement, saying that the families of passengers and crew members had been informed of the discovery. 
 
 mh/sms (AFP, AP) ||||| French contradict Malaysian claims of more objects on Réunion; Australians say still some doubt over whether debris last week was from MH370 
 
 Families of those on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have demanded an end to mixed messages in the investigation after authorities in France, the US and Australia stopped short of confirming Malaysia’s claim that a piece of plane wing found on the island of Réunion last week came from the missing jet. 
 
 On Wednesday, Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, said the flaperon that washed up on the French territory in the Indian Ocean, since transported to France for analysis, was from the doomed flight. 
 
 But his assertion has not been backed up by the other authorities involved in the investigation, and the dissonant stances have infuriated many relatives of those on board the plane, who have waited more than 500 days for concrete clues into the fates of their loved ones. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Transport minister Liow Tiong Lai says more possible MH370 debris has been sent to France for analysis. 
 
 “Why the hell do you have one confirm and one not?” Sara Weeks, the sister of New Zealander Paul Weeks, who was on board, told Associated Press. “Why not wait and get everybody on the same page so the families don’t need to go through this turmoil?” 
 
 The claims and counter-claims continued on Thursday when Liow said a team on the French territory of Réunion had collected more apparent plane debris. The claim was contradicted by French officials, who said no new material in the search for MH370 had been turned over to French authorities. 
 
 Liow said a Malaysian team had found the objects, including a window and some aluminium foil, but an aide to the minister later said it was “window material” rather than a window that was recovered. “I can only ascertain that it’s plane debris,” Liow said. “I cannot confirm that it’s from MH370.” 
 
 Flight MH370 went missing in March last year with 239 people on board. Many of the passengers’ relatives, who have waited nearly 17 months for tangible evidence, said they were fed up with the mixed messages. 
 
 “France is being cautious about it, but Malaysia is desperate to put an end to this case and run away from all responsibilities,” said Dai Shuqin, the sister of one of the passengers, was among about a dozen Chinese relatives who held a demonstration outside the Malaysia Airlines offices in Beijing. 
 
 MH370 debris found: will it solve the mystery of how the flight vanished? Read more 
 
 Najib’s confirmation was backed up on Thursday by his transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, who said a maintenance seal and other details prove that the wing part belonged to MH370. But it was of no comfort to Zhang Meiling, 62, whose daughter and son-in-law were on the plane. “I want to kill him [Najib]. What he said is nonsense. I just want to kill him.” 
 
 Investigations into the flaperon have resumed at a French military laboratory. French prosecutors were more cautious in their initial findings than Najib, saying only that there was a “very high probability” that the part was from MH370. But they confirmed the part was from a Boeing 777, of the type that vanished while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. 
 
 Liow said differences with other countries amounted to “a choice of words”. “They want to continue with additional tests. We respect their decision,” Liow said of the French. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Families say debris confirmation won’t bring closure. 
 
 China is home to more than half of the people who were on the plane, and many relatives called on the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to help them in their quest for justice. 
 
 
 
 “I don’t believe it,” said Bao Lanfang, 63, whose son, daughter-in-law and three-year-old grandchild were on MH370. “It has been 515 [days] – that is enough time for them to have produced fake debris.” 
 
 Many of the Chinese relatives continue to cling to the hope that their loved ones might be alive. In a statement, China’s foreign ministry expressed “grief and sorrow for those on board” and sent “profound sympathy and condolences to their families”. 
 
 Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which is leading the search for the crash site of MH370, said it would continue scanning the seabed 2,000km (1,200 miles) west of the Western Australian coastline. The agency said it was confident the discovery on Réunion was consistent with the crash site being within the search area. 
 
 Réunion is about 4,000km from the search area, which was doubled to 120,000 sq km in April. 
 
 
 
 The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said the underwater search for the rest of the plane, which has so far cost more than A$100m (£47m), would continue. 
 
 
 
 “We owe it to the hundreds of millions of people who use our skies, we owe it to the 24 million Australians who use our skies, we owe it to them to try to ensure that air travel is as safe as it possibly can be, to try to get to the bottom of this terrible mystery,” he said on Thursday. 
 
 Publicly, Australian officials have withheld criticism of Najib’s announcement, with the Australian transport minister, Warren Truss, saying Australia respected Malaysia’s right to make that call, given it was the government in charge of the investigation. 
 
 “Of course there [are] still some Is not dotted and Ts not crossed. There is still a very small element of doubt,” Truss said. 
 
 Privately, however, there were questions about why Najib had moved forward with the statement before all countries had agreed. 
 
 An Australian government official told Associated Press Malaysia wasn’t supposed to make the announcement, and had gone out on its own making a conclusive statement before getting the evidence to back it up. 
 
 Associated Press contributed to this report 
 
 ||||| KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia said on Thursday paint color and maintenance-record matches proved that a piece of wing found on the shore of an Indian Ocean island was part of the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which vanished last year. 
 
 Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said investigators on the French-governed island of Reunion had collected more aircraft debris, including a plane window and aluminum foil, but there was no confirmation they also belonged to the missing plane. 
 
 With the first trace of the plane confirmed, Malaysia has asked the governments of neighboring Mauritius and Madagascar to help widen the search area, he told reporters. 
 
 Earlier, Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed that the piece of debris was from the Boeing 777 airliner that was bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers and crew on board when it went missing. 
 
 "Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," Najib said in a televised address. 
 
 The airline described the find as "a major breakthrough". 
 
 The first piece of direct evidence that the plane crashed in the sea closed a chapter in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history. 
 
 But exactly what happened remains unknown and Najib's announcement did not appear to represent any kind of resolution for the families of those on board, most of whom were Chinese. 
 
 The fragment of wing known as a flaperon was flown to mainland France after being found last week covered in barnacles on a Reunion beach. 
 
 French authorities said they would step up efforts on Friday to find more debris off Reunion. That will include deploying a military aircraft as well as more police at sea and on the shore. 
 
 Despite the Malaysian confirmation, prosecutors in France stopped short of declaring they were certain, saying only that there was a "very strong presumption". 
 
 Deputy Paris Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said this was based on technical data supplied by both the manufacturer and airline but gave no indication that experts had discovered a serial number or unique markings that would put the link beyond doubt. 
 
 Representatives of manufacturer Boeing confirmed that the flaperon came from a 777 jet, he said, and Malaysia Airlines provided documentation of the missing aircraft. 
 
 Mackowiak told reporters more analysis would be carried out on Thursday, and a fragment of luggage also found in Reunion would be examined by French police. 
 
 "We appreciate the French team and their support and respect their decision to continue with the verification," Liow said, adding that Malaysian experts were convinced the flaperon was from MH370 because a seal on the part matched a maintenance record and the paint was the same color. 
 
 SEARCH FOR CLUES 
 
 A group of families from China said French investigators and Boeing must also say definitively the wing piece was from the plane. 
 
 "We are not living in denial ... but we owe it to our loved ones not to declare them lost without 100 percent certainty!" the families said on their microblog. 
 
 China's foreign ministry urged Malaysia to keep investigating and to "safeguard the legitimate rights and interests" of relatives. 
 
 Investigators looking at the wing flap at an aeronautical facility in the French city of Toulouse are likely to start by putting slices of metal under a high-powered microscope, to see clues in its crystal structure about how it deformed on impact, said Hans Weber, president of TECOP International, Inc., an aerospace technology consulting firm. 
 
 They would probably then "do a full physical examination, using ultrasonic analysis before they open it up to see if there's any internal damage", Weber said. 
 
 "That might take quite a while. A month or months." 
 
 John Goglia, a former board member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, told Reuters much could be learned from examining the metal and how the brackets that held the flaperon in place had broken. 
 
 However, other experts cautioned that the cause of the disaster may remain beyond the reach of investigators until other debris or data and cockpit voice recorders are recovered. 
 
 "Debris such as the flaperon can only increase our understanding of the last seconds of the flight," said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at industry publication Flightglobal. 
 
 Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, and is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, about 3,700 km (2,300 miles) east of Reunion. 
 
 Investigators believe that someone may have deliberately switched off the aircraft's transponder, diverted it off course and deliberately crashed into the sea. 
 
 An initial search of a 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq miles) patch of sea floor has been extended to another 60,000 sq km. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Siva Govindasamy, Praveen Menon, Emmanuel Jarry, Ingrid Melander, Ebrahim Harris, Alwyn Scott, Michael Martina and Lincoln Feast; Writing by Paul Tait and John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Birsel)
– The piece of plane wing confirmed to be from MH370 has company. In addition to a suitcase, Malaysia's transportation minister says "many items," including seat cushions, aluminum foil, and a window, have washed up on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, but experts have yet to prove the items are from the vanished jet, reports Deutsche Welle. "I can only ascertain that it's plane debris," he says. Malaysia yesterday confirmed the wing part, or flaperon, belonged to MH370 based on its paint color and a seal matching a maintenance record, reports Reuters. French experts who are continuing to study the flaperon, however, say there is simply a "very strong supposition" that it came from MH370. Malaysia has now asked neighboring areas, including Mauritius and Madagascar, to search for potential debris. Rather than bring closure, the find has incensed some Chinese relatives of those on board the Boeing 777 who streamed to the Beijing headquarters of Malaysia Airlines today, the Guardian reports. One woman says Prime Minister Najib Razak, who broke the news, was speaking "nonsense. I just want to kill him." "I don't believe it," says another, adding 515 days is "enough time for them to have produced fake debris." The Australian agency leading the search for MH370 says it will continue to focus on 46,000 square miles of seabed west of Australia, noting the debris is consistent with a crash site in that area. What's next for the flaperon? Investigators will likely analyze thin pieces under a microscope to see how it was broken, then "open it up to see if there's any internal damage," an expert says. The study could take "a month or months."