Australia Official: Too Early to Say If Plane Debris from MH370

SYDNEY—The Australian agency leading the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said a piece of plane debris that washed ashore on an island near Madagascar on Wednesday could have traveled thousands of miles from the suspected crash site, based on its analysis of ocean currents.

Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said French investigators would initially examine the piece of airplane debris, with input from Australia, Malaysia and manufacturers, including Boeing Co.

Flight 370, a Boeing 777, disappeared on March 8 last year with 239 people on board. Search teams have failed to find any trace of the aircraft in a 23,200-square-mile zone in the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia where it is believed the plane crashed.

"We've done quite a bit of drift modeling about where floating debris would drift to. It's not a precise science but certainly this is not inconsistent with the drift modeling we've done," Mr. Dolan said.

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