MH370: debris is not from plane

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney

Authorities say an eight-foot metallic object that washed up on an Australian beach was not from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. 

The item was ruled out as a possible lead, as a submarine search neared completion without finding wreckage. The unmanned Bluefin-21 submarine has completed more than 90 per cent of a targeted search area in the Indian Ocean about 650 miles off the coast of north-west Australia. 

“No contacts of interest have been found to date,” the search authority said. “Bluefin-21 is currently completing mission 12 in the underwater search area.” 

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said it had examined photographs of the objects that were found on Australia’s south-west coast and concluded they were not from the Boeing 777. 

 The Bluefin 21 has so far covered more than 90 percent of the seabed search zone (ADF) 

"We've carefully examined detailed photographs that were taken for us by the police and we're satisfied that it's not a lead in the search for MH370," Martin Dolan, a spokesman for the bureau, told ABC Radio. 

"From our point of view, we're ruling it out. We'll get some further details just to be sure but at this stage we're not seeing anything in this that would lead us to believe that it comes from a Boeing aircraft." 

The debris came ashore about six miles from the town of Augusta, hundreds of miles south-east from where the plane is believed to have crashed. The object was reportedly 1.6-feet wide, was made of an alloy and did not have any identifiable writing on it. 

Mat Franklin, who found the object and handed it to police, told Fairfax Media: "It looked pretty distinctly like a piece of aircraft. I didn't want to raise any alarms, I just wanted to get an opinion.” 

Authorities are continuing with a sea and air search for floating debris from the plane, which disappeared with 239 passengers aboard on March 8. 

Eleven military aircraft and eleven ships searched an area spanning 19,138 square miles in waters about 984 miles north-west of Perth. No debris has yet been found. 

Officials from Australia, Malaysia, the United States and China are discussing the next phase for the search, which may involve the deployment of additional equipment to scour the ocean floor. 

The underwater search has focused on an area where a towed pinger locator detected the strongest of four sets of pulses believed to be from the plane’ black box beacon. /Telegraph