Malaysia says Seychelles debris not from missing Flight 370

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian official said Friday that two pieces of debris found in Seychelles did not come from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said in a statement that investigators have analyzed photographs of the debris and confirmed it did not come from a Boeing 777 or from a Rolls Royce engine, the type used on the flight.

Some pieces of wreckage from the plane have washed ashore on coastlines around the Indian Ocean since the Boeing 777 jet disappeared on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

Malaysia, Australia and China suspended a nearly three-year search in the southern Indian Ocean on Jan. 17 after it failed to find any trace of the missing plane, one of aviation’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

Malaysian officials have said they will step up efforts to search for plane debris along the African coast. So far, 27 pieces of suspected debris have been found, of which three have been confirmed to be from Flight 370 and five others are “almost certain” to be from the plane.