(Bloomberg) -- Investigators probing the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight370 are examining an object found off the coast ofMozambique they suspect came from the missing Boeing Co. 777,a person familiar with the investigation said.

The piece turned up on a sandbank in Mozambique Channel wheredebris from the Indian Ocean washes up, according to the person,who asked not to be identified because he wasn’t authorized tospeak about the investigation. It appears to be part of a 777 tailand, since there aren’t any other cases in which that model hascrashed, investigators believe it may have come from the plane thatwent missing almost two years ago, the official said.

Preliminary analysis of photographs by investigators inMalaysia, Australia and the U.S. suggests the piece is a fiberglassand aluminum section from the front of the horizontal stabilizer,the small wings at the tail, according to the official. The pieceis marked with the words “NO STEP,” the official said. Thediscovery was first reported by NBC.

“Based on early reports, high possibility debris found inMozambique belongs to a B777,” Malaysia’s Transport Minister LiowTiong Lai said in a Twitter post. “It is yet to beconfirmed & verified” and Malaysian authorities areworking with Australian counterpartsto retrieve the debris, he said.

Boeing had no immediate comment.

“It’s too speculative at this point for MAS to comment,”Malaysia Airlines said in response to questions from BloombergNews, referring to itself by its acronym.

Second Item

If it’s verified, the item would become the second confirmedpiece of the jetliner that disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014while on a routine flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, becomingone of aviation’s most befuddling mysteries. There have been notraces of the 239 people on board, their luggage or even the lifejackets that were supposed to float.

A barnacle-encrusted wing flap was found last year on ReunionIsland, thousands of miles from the search area off Australia’swest coast. The Mozambique location where the latest find was madeis at a similar latitude as Reunion Island, about 1,300 miles(2,000 km) west.

Indian Ocean

Australia is leading a search of the southern Indian Ocean whereinvestigators believe the plane flew after turning around betweenMalaysia and Vietnam and heading into one of the most remote areasof the world. The path was estimated from pings between the planeand a satellite after other electronics and radios on the planestopped functioning.

Related: Family of American on disappeared flight suesMalaysia Airlines

Some of the world’s most experienced search-and-rescue expertsare resigned to the fact that the A$180 million ($130 million)search may fail. Without fresh clues, four ships are due to finishcombing the seas off western Australia, Martin Dolan, head ofthe Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in an interview withBloomberg News last month. Within a rectangle the size of NorthKorea, vessels have scoured most of the patch believed to be theprobable impact point — and come up empty.

--With assistance from Chong Pooi Koon and ManirajanRamasamy.

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