Photo: The Canadian Press

With the recent discovery of a plane part on an island in the Indian Ocean, a theory floated by a Canadian pilot, Chris Goodfellow now has some additional support.

The part found on Reunion Island reportedly carries an identification number that matches that found on a Boeing 777, the make of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. According to the Aviation Safety Network, a database of flight incidents, there are no other unaccounted for 777s in the world.

The flight took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, destined for Beijing. About an hour into the flight, the plane went dark; both the transponder and secondary radar tracking went off.

The Malaysian military later said it picked up the plane on its military radar, travelling southwest into the Strait of Malacca. This would mean the plane made an almost complete turn around from its original destination.

In a theory posted online last year, Goodfellow said he believes a fire erupted on board, perhaps an electrical fire, or maybe from an overheating of an underinflated tire that ignited upon takeoff.

Goodfellow theorizes the pilot would then look to land at the nearest airport, which was Palau Langkawi. This would account for the 180-degree turn.

He says the crew may have been overcome by smoke, and the plane continued past Palau Langkawi on autopilot until it ran out of fuel or fire destroyed the controls.

In light of this week's discovery, Goodfellow’s theory looks plausible. If the plane passed Palau Langkawi, it would have most likely crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean, west of Sumatra. West-flowing South Equatorial ocean currents would have brought the wreckage toward Africa, possibly washing a piece ashore on the east side of Reunion.

There is precedence for large objects travelling vast distances across the Indian Ocean. Last year, a man lost his boat off the Western Australia coast after it overturned in rough seas. Eight months later, it turned up off the French island of Mayotte, near Madagascar, 7,400 kilometres from where it disappeared.

The discovery has changed the life of Reunion environmental worker Johnny Begue. He told The Associated Press that he stumbled across the plane part on Wednesday morning, while collecting stones to grind spices.

"I knew immediately it was part of an aircraft, but I didn't realize how important it was, that it could help to solve the mystery of what happened to the Malaysian jet," said Begue.

The piece could help investigators figure out how the plane crashed, but whether it will help search crews pinpoint the rest of the wreckage is unclear, given the complexity of the currents in the southern Indian Ocean and the time that has elapsed since the plane disappeared.

It was well understood after the aircraft disappeared that if there were any floating debris from the plane, currents would eventually bring it to the east coast of Africa, said aviation safety expert John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. But the debris is unlikely to provide much help in tracing the currents back to the location of the main wreckage, he said.

Goodfellow's theory in his own words can be found here. 

– with files from The Canadian Press