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By that time another large piece, known as a flaperon, from the wing, had already been found on Reunion Island, confirming to the families that MH370 had indeed crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Until the flaperon was found, the only evidence for the plane turning back on itself was data from military radar in Malaysia and Thailand, which spotted the plane flying west over the Malay peninsula.

In July 2015, a fragment later confirmed to be a flaperon from Flight 370 was found on France’s Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean, the first hard evidence that MH370 ended its flight in the Indian Ocean.

Knowing precise sea-surface temperatures and times the barnacles drifted on the flaperon could narrow the search area by an order of magnitude.

The French released two science reports on the barnacles within a year of the flaperon’s discovery.