Flight MH370 Update: ‘Black Box’ Found In Somalia ‘Definitely’ Not From Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane

A flight recorder that washed up on a beach in Somalia last week is not from the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, an Australian official said Monday, according to the Guardian. The "black box" was found on a beach near the coastal town of Gara’ad by a local businessman, Somalia’s Jariiban News Network reported Thursday.

Some reports claimed that the orange, spherical object may be linked to flight MH370, which went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. However, a representative for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is leading the search for the plane in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, told the Guardian that the object did not come from the missing Boeing 777-200.

“In any case, it is definitely not from MH370, which was equipped with a modern ‘orange brick’-style flight data recorder," the official reportedly said. “It is worth noting that the MH370 flight data recorder would not float, so it is highly unlikely that it will be found on any coastline.”

Australia has already spent nearly $90 million in a desperate attempt to find the wreckage. Over the last few months, several pieces of debris have been found near South Africa and on the Rodrigues Island in Mauritius. Last month, ATSB announced that stenciled codes on two debris pieces found along the coast of the southeast African nation of Mozambique "almost certainly" proved they originated from Flight MH370.

In July 2015, a flaperon belonging to Flight MH370 turned up on the French-controlled Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

Despite the findings, authorities have yet to find concrete clues as to what happened to Flight MH370. As the search for the plane continues in the southern Indian Ocean, other debris pieces found over the last few months are still being analyzed.

More than 40,000 square miles of the total search area of 46,332 square miles has so far been scoured, with operations expected to be called off in July.