Large metal chunk investigated after washing onto Thai beach

BANGKOK – A large chunk of metal that could be from an aircraft washed ashore in southern Thailand, but Malaysian authorities have cautioned against speculation of a link to a Malaysia Airlines flight missing almost two years.

The location on the eastern side of Thailand where the debris was found also means it is highly unlikely that the material is from the missing plane.

Flight MH370 lost communications and made a sharp turn away from its Beijing destination before disappearing in March 2014. It is presumed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, and only one piece of debris has been identified as coming from the plane, a slab of wing that washed ashore on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean in July.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said he instructed Malaysian civil aviation officials to contact Thailand about the newly found wreckage, a curved piece of metal measuring about 6 feet by 10 feet with electrical wires hanging from it and numbers stamped on it in several places.

“I urge the media and the public not to speculate because it will give undue pressure to the loved ones of the victims of MH370,” he said.

Thailand’s Transportation Ministry said four Malaysian officials and two Thai experts will visit the site Monday.

Liow said the search for the missing jet, which carried 239 people, is ongoing in the southern Indian Ocean and that its second phase is expected to be completed by June.

The debris was found on the eastern coast of southern Thailand’s Nakhon Si Thammarat province, about 370 miles south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand.