Augusta, Australia (CNN) -- A metal object that washed ashore on Australia's coast wasn't from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, offici...
Augusta, Australia (CNN) -- A metal object that washed ashore on Australia's coast wasn't from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, officials said.
Detailed pictures of the
object were enough to convince investigators that it wasn't a lead in
the search for the missing plane, the Australian agency leading the
search for the aircraft said on Thursday.
Officials had previously
called the piece of metal, which appeared to have rivets on one side, an
"object of interest" in the search.
Police picked it up near
Augusta, Australia, roughly 1,000 miles away from the suspected crash
site, after many futile days of searching for the missing plane. Authorities haven't said what they think the object could be.
MH370 search: Object found on Australian coast wasn't from missing plane |
Possible promising leads
have turned out to be false alarms for weeks in the lengthy search for
the missing plane, which disappeared mid-flight on March 8 with 239
people aboard. One major challenge that's complicated the search: the ocean is full of garbage. Other objects search teams have spotted in the Indian Ocean turned out to be trash, jellyfish and fishing gear.
Bad weather grounded
planes searching for signs of debris on Wednesday. And a high-tech
underwater drone found no sign of the Boeing 777 jetliner.
If nothing turns up in the Bluefin-21's underwater search, the investigation will move into a new phase that could involve new equipment and an expanded search area.
And as the search came up empty again, a key question loomed: Are they looking in the right place?
"They have been
searching for more than a month. All of the ships, the planes, the
satellites they're using, not even a small piece of the plane was
found," Steve Wang, whose mother was aboard the aircraft, told CNN's
"The Lead with Jake Tapper" on Thursday.
Abbott: 'We may rethink the search, but we will not rest'
Up to 11 military aircraft and 11 ships are set to search for the plane on Thursday.
And there's still ground left to cover.
The Bluefin-21 has scanned more than 90% of the underwater search area set out by investigators and began its 12th mission on Thursday.
"We will continue with
the search operation until we fully cover the search area," Hishammuddin
Hussein, Malaysia's acting transport minister, said Wednesday.
Despite the search
efforts for MH370 repeatedly coming up empty during the 48 days since it
started, there's no suggestion the hunt in the southern Indian Ocean is
anywhere close to ending is
heading up the search for the missing aircraft.
"We are not going to
abandon ... the families of the 239 people who were on that plane by
lightly surrendering while there is reasonable hope of finding
something," he said Wednesday. "We may well rethink the search, but we
will not rest until we have done everything we can to solve this
mystery."
What comes next?
Malaysian and Australian
authorities are already mapping out a long-term strategy for the
search, which could go on for months or years, if the two-year search
for Air France Flight 447 is any guide.
Guidelines drafted by
Malaysia raise the possibility of a significantly wider search area
should the current underwater search fail to turn up evidence of the
plane. The document discusses how best to deploy resources, including
new underwater search assets.
If the underwater search comes up empty, it could ground the air search as well, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien said.
"If it doesn't pan out,
then all the equations that have been put in the mix to determine where
debris might be ... all of that is for naught," he said.
The next logical step
after the underwater search is to "rethink all of the information we
have at hand," ocean search specialist Rob McCallum told CNN.
An expanded search area might include the last 370 miles of the plane's flight path, perhaps 15 miles on either side, he said.
He also said it would
make sense to turn to deep-towed sonar, which provides less resolution
than the Bluefin-21 but about 10 times the range.
If the search changes
tacks, that doesn't mean investigators did the wrong thing by looking
where they did for the plane, said CNN analyst David Gallo, who co-led
the search for Air France Flight 447.
Satellite and fuel consumption data, and possible pings from the plane's flight data recorders led searchers to the part of the Indian Ocean they're combing now, he said.
"It's the place they had to look. ... Everything pointed to this area," he said.
Going forward, he said,
investigators may double or triple the size of the search area while
using sonar to map the ocean floor "so you see where every pebble is."
"I just don't know how you leave this place before you take that area of the seafloor apart completely," he said.
What happens if data recorders are found?
Investigators would love
to find the flight data recorders from Flight 370, a potential treasure
trove of information into what happened to the jetliner and the 239
passengers and crew on board.
If found, the "black boxes" probably would go to the Australian Transport Safety Board's accident investigation lab.
But the investigation is officially Malaysian, so that country's officials would decide where the boxes would go.
Australia is just one of
a handful of countries that have the capability and technical know-how
to decipher what's inside a black box.
The investigation into
Flight 370's disappearance is Malaysia's responsibility. Australia is
leading the search for the missing aircraft and participating in the
investigation as an accredited representative.
The Malaysian Cabinet
approved the appointment of an international investigation team to look
into the disappearance of Flight 370, Hishammuddin said.
The names of the members
will be announced next week, he added. He also said the team will not
be looking at the criminal aspects of the investigation, which remain
under the Royal Malaysian Police.
"The main purpose is to evaluate and determine the cause of the accident," Hishammuddin said.
Malaysia has completed a
preliminary report on the incident, as required by the International
Civil Aviation Organization, but has not released it publicly, he said.
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