Suspected plane wreckage found off Thailand coast

The wreckage washed up on a beach in Southern Thailand. Photo / Twitter, @PenserKant

•Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board
•The plane was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing
•A piece of plane wing was found on Reunion Island in July 2015
•Reunion Island is in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar
•The piece of wing was formally identified as part of the wreckage of MH370 in September 2015

A large piece of curved metal washed ashore in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, where villagers reported it to the authorities to help identify it, Tanyapat Patthikongpan, head of Pak Phanang district, told Reuters on Saturday.

"Villagers found the wreckage, measuring about 2 metres wide and 3 metres long," he said.

The find has fuelled speculation in the Thai media that the debris could belong to MH370, which disappeared with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.

There has been no official confirmation that the wreckage belongs to a plane. And Patthikongpan added that "fishermen said it could have been under the sea for no more than a year, judging from barnacles on it."

The wreckage has caused a lot of reaction on social media, experts also weighing in.

Wall Street Journal reporter Jon Ostrower doesn't believe the wreckage is from MH370.

The debris in Thailand isn’t #MH370, it looks a lot like a Japanese H-IIA rocket fairing. https://t.co/gwG8MlNGo5 pic.twitter.com/ooGgIqh5XQ

— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) January 23, 2016

Investigators believe someone may have deliberately switched off MH370's transponder before diverting it thousands of miles off course. Most of the passengers were Chinese. Beijing said it was following developments closely.

Lingering uncertainty surrounding the fate of the plane has tormented the families of those on board. Some have said even the discovery of debris would still not solve the mystery.

-AAP