Malaysia Airlines Towelette Found on Beach Not From MH 370, Say Officials

Australian officials say it is very unlikely that a towelette that washed up on the country’s west coast last summer had been on board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Reports surfaced on Tuesday that the towelette carrying a Malaysia Airlines logo had first been discovered on a beach more than 100 miles north of Perth last July.

“It is unlikely, however, that such a common item with no unique identifier could be conclusively linked with MH 370,” said the Australian Transport Safety Bureau in a statement, according to Agence France-Presse.

MH 370 vanished from radar screens less than an hour after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8 last year and has been missing ever since.

Officials have narrowed the current search zone to a patch of ocean floor 1,000 miles off the coast of Perth, in accordance with calculations derived from a number of electronic handshakes the plane made with a satellite.

However, search and recovery teams canvassing large swaths of the Indian Ocean have yet to find a shred of wreckage from the missing plane.