Unidentified Material Washed Ashore Unrelated to MH370

Unidentified material washed ashore 10 kilometres east of Augusta is not a lead in relation to the search for missing flight MH370, according to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).

The conclusion was made after examining detailed photographs of the unidentified material. The ATSB has also provided the photographs to the Malaysian investigation team.

Up to 11 military aircraft and 11 ships are planned to assist in today’s search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said.

Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totaling approximately 49,567 square kilometres. The centre of the search area lies approximately 1584 kilometres north west of Perth.

Prior to the commencement of today’s air search operations, an assessment of current weather conditions will be made as ex-Tropical Cyclone Jack moves south.

The weather forecast for today is for heavy rain and low cloud, with south easterly winds up to 35 knots, sea swells of three to four metres and visibility of one kilometre.

Bluefin-21 AUV is currently completing mission 12 in the underwater search area. Bluefin-21 has now completed more than 90 per cent of the focused underwater search area. No contacts of interest have been found to date.

The focused underwater search area is defined as a circle of 10km radius around the second Towed Pinger Locator detection which occurred on 8 April.

[mappress]
JACC, April 24, 2014