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Oil slick not from MH370, say Australian authorities

PERTH — The oil slick detected in the search area for MH370 did not come from the missing jetliner, the Australian authorities said today (April 17).

A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion flies past the Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield as it drops sonar buoys to assist in the search for Flight MH370. Photo: REUTERS

A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion flies past the Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield as it drops sonar buoys to assist in the search for Flight MH370. Photo: REUTERS

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PERTH — The oil slick detected in the search area for MH370 did not come from the missing jetliner, the Australian authorities said today (April 17).

In a press release, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the chief coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), said analysis of a sample the oil slick detected by the search vessel Ocean Shield on Sunday showed that it is neither aircraft engine oil nor hydraulic fluid.

The JACC also said that reports saying it would take the submersible vehicle Bluefin-21 six weeks to two months for to comb the search area are inaccurate.

Those numbers, released by the US Navy, are based on a search area that has since been “significantly narrowed” through detailed analysis on the four underwater pings detected earlier by the Ocean Shield, the JACC said.

Currently, the reduced and focused underwater search area represents “the best lead we have in relation to missing flight MH370”, the JACC added, although the press release did not have an estimate of how long the current search will take.

MH370 disappeared more than a month ago on March 8, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board. An international fleet consisting of dozens of ships and aircraft has been searching for the remains of the jetliner in an area of the South Indian Ocean some 2,200 km northwest of the west coast city of Perth.

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