The search for MH370 will continue off the coast of Australia

Police carry piece of debris from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

(Image credit: Yannick Pitou/Getty Images)

published 6 August 2015

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced Thursday that the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will continue off the country's western coast, The New York Times reports. Abbott's announcement came just hours after it was confirmed that a plane part found on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion was from the doomed flight, which went missing over a year ago with 239 people on board.

"What we have found in the western Indian Ocean does seem to indicate the plane did come down more or less where we thought it did," Abbott said. "And it suggests that for the first time we might be a little closer to solving this baffling mystery."