In this map provided on Wednesday, April 23, 2014, by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, details are presented in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Police secured the material, which washed ashore 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Augusta in Western Australia state, the search coordination center said in a statement, without describing the material found. Police picked it up near Augusta, Australia, roughly 1,000 miles away from the suspected crash site, after many futile days of searching for the missing plane. Possible promising leads have turned out to be false alarms for weeks in the lengthy search for the missing plane, which disappeared mid-flight on March 8 with 239 people aboard. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the airliner's probable impact zone was 700 kilometers (430 miles) long and 80 kilometers (50 miles) wide. "We are not going to abandon ... the families of the 239 people who were on that plane by lightly surrendering while there is reasonable hope of finding something," he said Wednesday. "If at the end of that period we find nothing, we are not going to abandon the search, we may well rethink the search, but we will not rest until we have done everything we can to solve this mystery," Abbott told reporters. Investigators would love to find the flight data recorders from Flight 370, a potential treasure trove of information into what happened to the jetliner and the 239 passengers and crew on board. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is examining photographs to assess whether further investigation is needed and if the material is relevant to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The names of the members will be announced next week, he added.
– As the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues, an "object of interest" has turned up in southwestern Australia—but officials are cautioning that it may not offer much of a breakthrough. "It's sufficiently interesting for us to take a look at the photographs," says an Australian official. But "the more we look at it, the less excited we get." An insider tells CNN the object's size is unclear based on photos, but it's "kind of rectangular" with rivets and an apparent fiberglass coating. Meanwhile, the Bluefin-21 underwater robot has completed more than 80% of its planned search without finding anything, the AP reports. But the overall investigation won't stop anytime soon: Indeed, it could continue for years, CNN notes. "The next phase, I think, is that we step up with potentially a more powerful, more capable side-scan sonar to do deeper water," says Australia's defense minister. Adds Australian PM Tony Abbott. "We are not going to abandon ... the families of the 239 people who were on that plane by lightly surrendering while there is reasonable hope of finding something."