PERTH: The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is confident the unidentified material that was washed ashore in Augusta, southwest coast of Western Australia was not from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) yesterday said the ATSB, after having examined the detailed photographs of the material, was satisfied that it was not a lead in relation to the search for the ill-fated flight.
The JACC, which oversees the search operation, said this in a statement, here, yesterday.
ATSB spokesman, Martin Dolan, in an interview with the CNN on Wednesday said the material appeared to be a sheet metal with rivets.
“It is sufficiently interesting for us to take a look at the photographs but the more we look at it, the less excited we get,” he said.
The ATSB had also provided the photographs to the Malaysian investigation team, the JACC said in a statement, Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the Western Australia Police had attended a report of the material washed ashore 10 kilometres east of Augusta, about 322 km south from here and have secured the material, before it was examined by the ATSB.
Meanwhile, JACC said the visual and underwater search operation continued yesterday with up to 11 military aircraft and 11 ships to be involved in a planned visual search area approximately 49,567 square kilometres, with the centre located about 1584 km north west of Perth.
While the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Bluefin-21, which is currently on its 12th mission, has completed 90 per cent of the focused underwater search area, with no contacts of interest being found to date.
Prior to the commencement of yesterday’s air search operations, the agency pointed out that an assessment of current weather conditions would be made as ex-Tropical Cyclone Jack moved south.
“The weather forecast for today (yesterday) 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,” the agency said. — Bernama