As Malaysian experts prepare to examine a large piece of debris which could be from flight MH370, here is a timeline of major developments since the airliner disappeared.

:: 8 March 2014
The Malaysia Airlines flight leaves Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at 12:41am local time with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.
It makes its last verbal contact with Malaysian air traffic control at 1:19am.

:: 9 March
Vietnamese aircraft reports seeing a door off the southwest coast of Vietnam, but it was found to be unrelated to Flight MH370.

:: 15 March
The search area is expanded to two air corridors: a northern one stretching as far as Turkmenistan and Thailand, and one which goes through Indonesia and into the southern Indian Ocean.

:: 20 March
Australian satellite images show two objects around 1,550 miles west of Perth, but surveillance aircraft are unable to locate them.

:: 22 March
Chinese satellites spot a large object further south in the Indian Ocean, but aircraft flying over the site find only clumps of seaweed and a wooden pallet.

:: 23 March
French satellites pick up 122 objects some 1,500 miles west of Australia, but search crews fail to find anything of significance.

:: 24 March
Relatives are told the jet had crashed in the Indian Ocean by text message.

:: 28 March
The search continues in a new location, further north in the Indian Ocean, with a Chinese plane spotting three multi-coloured objects.

:: 31 March
An Australian pilot spots a cluster of orange objects, which turn out to be fishing equipment.

:: 4 April
Australian authorities launch a new underwater phase of the search. British vessel HMS Echo and nuclear submarine HMS Tireless join the effort.

:: 7 April
The "most promising lead" so far is declared by search team leader Angus Houston – after two signals are detected, suggesting the presence of a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder.

:: 30 May
Search teams say they remain "absolutely confident" they will find the missing plane, despite an error tracing underwater signals that left them scouring the wrong area.

:: 9 June
Families try to raise US$5m (€4.5m) to reward any "whistleblower" who can offer information which leads to the discovery of the lost plane.

:: 17 July
Malaysia Airlines is in the headlines again after Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur is shot down over rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine.
All 298 passengers and crew on board are killed. Ukraine and the West believe the rebels shot down the plane with a Russia-supplied missile system.
Russia denies involvement. The MH17 disaster is still under investigation.

:: 28 August
The search for MH370 shifts to a different area of the southern Indian Ocean.

:: 22 October
Malaysia's Defence Minister tells Sky News he is "99.9% sure" the sonar technology being used in the hunt for Flight MH370 will find the doomed jet.

:: 29 January 2015
Authorities in Malaysia officially declare that the loss of Flight MH370 was an accident, and that all on board are dead.

:: 7 March
Relatives mark the first anniversary since the disappearance of the Boeing 777 - and Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai says his country remains committed to finding the plane.

:: 8 March
The man in charge of the search, Martin Dolan, says he is "expecting but not guaranteeing" that the aircraft will be found, after covering 40% of a 60,000 sq km search area.

:: 16 April
Ministers from Malaysia, Australia and China - the three nations leading the operation - vow to double the search area for Flight MH370 if the plane is not recovered by the end of May.

:: 13 May
Search teams make an unexpected discovery after finding a cluster of objects which turn out to be a shipwreck.

:: 29 July
A large piece of debris washes ashore on Reunion Island – sparking speculation it may be from Flight MH370.
Air safety investigators say they have a "high degree of confidence" the debris is from a Boeing 777, and experts from Malaysia fly to the island to examine the find.