SAINT-ANDRÉ/KUALA LUMPUR (AFP, REUTERS) – Authorities hunting for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 said on Friday that they were “increasingly confident” that wreckage found on an Indian Ocean island was from the ill-fated jet, raising hopes of solving one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

The two-metre-long piece of wreckage found on the French island of La Reunion is to be sent to Toulouse on Friday for analysis, with hopes high that it could turn out to be the first tangible proof of the plane.

Sources said the wreckage - believed to be a flaperon from the wing of a Boeing 777 - should arrive at the testing site on Saturday.

A source quoted by Reuters said a fragment of a luggage found near the debris will also be sent for examination.

Investigators are hoping they will be able to move closer to solving the perplexing mystery swirling around the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, which vanished without a trace 16 months ago with 239 people aboard.

“We are increasingly confident that this debris is from MH370,” Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau which is leading the MH370 search, told AFP.

“The shape of the object looks very much like a very specific part associated only with 777 aircraft.”

Dolan, however, echoed comments on Thursday by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who said the object was “very likely” from a Boeing 777 but cautioned that it remained to be confirmed, in a case notorious for disappointing false leads.

Dolan said he was hoping for greater clarity “within the next 24 hours”.

- Likely to be part of Boeing 777 plane -

Several experts were convinced that the wreckage was a flaperon from the wing of a Boeing 777, which if proven meant it almost certainly belonged to the Malaysia Airlines plane whose disappearance on March 8 last year sparked one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

The wreckage washed up on La Reunion island, some 4,000 km from the area where flight MH370 was thought to have gone down.

Aviation expert Xavier Tytelman said he and other specialists had compared the debris to hundreds of photos and plane blueprints, and found only one possible match: the flaperon which is a mobile part on the edge of the wing of a Boeing 777.

According to a US official, a part number on the wing component confirms that it was from a Boeing 777, said Bloomberg. Photos of the part also helped Boeing identify it, said the official, who wasn't authorised to speak about the investigation.

Malaysia Airlines was operating a Boeing 777 on the ill-fated flight, which vanished without a trace while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in one of the most baffling mysteries in aviation history.

Search efforts led by Australia have focused on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia, roughly 3,700km from La Reunion island.

There have been four serious accidents involving 777s in the 20 years since the widebody jet came into service. Only MH370 is thought to have crashed south of the equator.