Search for MH370 continues amid bad weather

The search for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that went missing over a month ago continued Thursday in waters off the west Australian coast amid unfavourable weather conditions, even as authorities said that some debris reported to have washed been ashore Wednesday were not linked to the plane.

Up to 11 military aircraft and 11 ships are assisting in Thursday's search.

"Today (Thursday) the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totaling approximately 49,567 sq km. The centre of the search area lies approximately 1,584 km north west of Perth," the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) of Australia said in its latest update.

"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," it added.

The JACC said the weather forecast for Thursday was for heavy rain and low clouds, with southeasterly winds up to 35 knots, sea swells of three to four metres and visibility of one km.

The Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is in the process of completing mission 12 in the underwater search area and has completed more than 90 percent of its mission. No contacts of interest have been found to date.

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

Meanwhile, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has said that after examining detailed photographs of material washed ashore 10 km east of Augusta in Western Australia's southern tip, it was satisfied it was not a lead in relation to the search for MH370.

"Any further information will be made available if and when it becomes available," the JACC said.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished mysteriously about an hour after taking off for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur shortly after midnight March 8.

The Boeing 777-200ER was scheduled to land in Beijing the same morning. The 227 passengers on board included five Indians, 154 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.