An oil slick found in the Indian Ocean did not come from the missing Malaysian passenger plane, preliminary analysis has found.
Two litres of oil were found by Australian vessel Ocean Shield in the area where four "pings" possibly from the missing plane's black box recorder were detected last week.
They were immediately taken for tests to determine whether they could be a clue to the location of flight MH370, which vanished while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8th.
The plane was carrying 239 people, most of them Chinese nationals.
Reporter Nick Martin, in Perth, Australia, said "The discovery of an oil slick near to the search area was one of the 'promising leads' authorities spoke of. If analysis had shown it to be engine oil from the plane it would have been the first real, tangible sign of missing MH370".
"This is yet another investigative avenue closed. Malaysia Airlines had flown a sample of the engine oil it uses in its 777 fleet to Perth to compare it with that of the material discovered in the Indian Ocean" he added.
Officials have denied reports efforts to find the plane are winding down, and say the search will continue over the weekend. The unmanned submarine 'Bluefin 21', currently tasked with mapping the ocean floor for wreckage, completed its first full mission overnight.
The submersible spent 16 hours on the ocean floor and has mapped a total area of 90 square kilometres, according to a spokesman for the Joint Air Coordination Centre (JACC) in Perth, western Australia.
