Crews searching on and near Reunion island in the Indian Ocean for debris that may provide clues to the whereabouts of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 scaled back their efforts Monday, French police said.
A 10-day long search for debris connected to the missing plane was launched after Malaysian officials confirmed that a wing flap found on one of the island's beaches belonged to MH370.
Since that discovery, nearly 200 French authorities searching the island and the waters surrounding it — by land, sea and air — haven't found anything else that is connected to the missing Boeing 777, according to Reunion police.
"In the absence of a new discovery of objects of interest to the ongoing investigation, it appears that the statistical chances of discovering the remains of the MH370 in an organized research appear to be extremely low," Reunion police said in a statement.
Related: MH370 Mystery Puts Reunion Island 'On the Map' — Now What?
The police and military will continue to be on the lookout for anything unusual during their daily assignments, the statement said. During the more vigorous 10-day search, crews covered 4,000 square miles of ocean and spent more than 140 hours scouring the land for any refuse that might belong to the plane.
Malaysian crews recovered a plane window and aluminum foil on Reunion shortly after the wing flap finding, but there is no proof either came from MH370, which vanished in March of last year with 239 passengers and crew on board.
Australian officials continue to search in a remote area of the ocean closer to Australia, where experts believe the plane went down. More than 23,000 square miles of the ocean floor have been searched so far, according to the Australian government.
