Australia rules out link between debris and Malaysian plane

P TH euters Authorities ruled out any link between debris picked up on an Australian beach and a missing alaysian etliner yesterday as a tropical cyclone again threatened to hamper a 2 -nation air, surface and underwater search of the Indian cean.

The debris, found on ednesday on a beach at the southern tip of estern Australia state, was seen as the fi rst lead since April when authorities detected what they believed was a signal from the black bo of alaysia Airlines light H 0, which disappeared on arch with 2 people on board.

ut it took Australian authorities less than a day to analy e detailed photographs of the beached debris, no description of which was given, and dismiss the possibility that it may be linked to the plane. Kg

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“ e’re not seeing anything in this that would lead us to believe that it is from a oeing aircraft,” Australian Transport Safety ureau commissioner artin olan the Australian roadcasting Corp.

That puts the focus of the search, the most e pensive in aviation history, back on US Navy undersea drone Bluefin-21, which will soon finish scouring a 10 s uare kms stretch of seabed where the acoustic pings were located.

Authorities have said if Bluefi fails to find a trace of the plane in its initial target search area, some 2,000 kms northwest of the estern Australian city of Perth, it will be redeployed to new areas, still to be determined.

n ednesday, alaysian Transport inister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters that authorities would be “increasing the assets that are available for deep- sea search” and that his government was seeking help from state oil company Petronas which has e pertise in deep-sea e ploration.

Search authorities would need to “regroup and restrategi e” if nothing was found in the c u r re n t s e a rc h o n e , but the search would “always continue,” Hussein said.

Australian search officials said weather conditions may impact the search effort after the air component was suspended for the previous two days because of heavy rain, strong winds, rough seas related to related to Tropical Cyclone ack.

Up to 11 military aircraft and 11 ships were e pected to help with the day’s search although authorities would monitor the weather before the sorties commenced.