Debris Found Off Thailand Not From MH370

A piece of suspected plane wreckage found off the coast of southern Thailand does not belong to Malaysia Airlines MH370, the Malaysian transport ministry said.

The debris does not match that of a Boeing 777 and the part numbers found on the debris were not listed on the Malaysia Airlines parts manual, the ministry said in a statement following an investigation.

A large piece of curved metal washed ashore in Nakhon Si Thammarat province on Saturday, prompting speculation it might belong to the missing 777.

MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014. A piece of the plane washed up on the French island of Reunion in July 2015 but no further trace has been found.

The search, led by Australia and one of the most expensive ever conducted, is focused on a 120,000 sq km (46,330 sq mile) band of sea floor in the remote southern Indian Ocean.

Earlier this week, Australian authorities said the search team had lost a deep-water sonar detector being used to scour a patch of the ocean floor.