KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 ― Australian deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss today said there is a “realistic possibility” that the debris found on the island of La Reunion is from the wreckage of flight MH370.

Truss was quoted by British daily The Guardian as saying that photos of the flaperon found on the French territory were “not inconsistent with a Boeing 777”, referring to the plane model of the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner.

“A piece of debris could have floated a very, very long way in 16 months and it is a very, very long way to the Reunion islands from where we think the aircraft entered the water,” he told a news conference in Australia.

“Clearly we are treating this as a major lead,” he added.

Truss stressed, however, that there are other possibilities regarding the flaperon.

He noted that the number found on the part ― BB670 ― could be a maintenance number and not a serial number.

Despite this, Truss, who is also Australia’s transport minister, insisted that they are looking for the wreckage of MH370 in the right location and that the Australian-led search operation will continue combing the area.

Earlier, Malaysian deputy Transport Minister Datuk Aziz Kaprawi announced that it is “almost certain” that the debris found on the island is from a Boeing 777, raising the possibility that it could have originated from the missing flight.

It has been over a year since the plane, which was en-route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared on March 8, 2014, sparking one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries.

Search efforts have focused on a large area in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia, some 3,700km from La Reunion where the flaperon was found washed ashore this morning.