More than four years since its unexplained disappearance, one man is on a mission to find out exactly what happened to flight MH370.
The plane, along with 227 passengers and 12 crew members, vanished in March 2014 while it was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The official search for the Boeing 777 has recently been called off, having found nothing but a few fragments of the Malaysia Airlines flight. Pieces of debris from the aircraft washed up on beaches along the Indian Ocean during 2015 and 2016.
Though many theories have been suggested regarding what happened to the plane, including hijacking and a sudden drop in pressure inside the cabin, the Malaysian Ministry of Transport’s final report from July this year was inconclusive.
Now, a video producer and his brother have taken it upon themselves to track down the missing plane, after they claim to have seen the plane on Google Maps.
Ian Wilson and his brother Jack believe remnants of flight MH370 are strewn across a jungle in Cambodia, and have set off on a mission to find the site.
Speaking to Daily Star, Ian said:
I just thought I’d have a wander through. I work in digital video so I’m on Google Earth all the time.
So I was on there, a few hours here, a few hours there. If you added it up I spent hours searching for places a plane could have gone down.
And in the end, as you can see the place where the plane is. It is literally the greenest, darkest part you can see.
He added:
The Boeing 777-200 is 63.7m in length. Measuring the Google sighting you’re looking at around 69 metres, but there looks to be a gap between the tail and the back of the plane. It’s just slightly bigger, but there’s a gap that would probably account for that.
Now, the two brothers have made their way to Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh to start their search mission.
After arriving in the country earlier this week, they will today, October 19, make their way to Chrok La Eang Waterfalls, before setting out on foot on a five-mile mission to the Pursat Province border to locate the area Ian saw on Google Maps.
Speaking to the Daily Star, Ian said:
The first night we were in Phnom Penh, and earlier we headed west to a place in Kampong Speu, which is where we are now.
At dawn we’re leaving for a place close to the Chrok La Eang waterfalls. It’s hard to see any real route to it by roads but it’s earmarked as a place for tourists to go so well find it.
Then from there it’s anyones guess, that’s probably as close as anyone has been to the site.
He also dismissed the notion that the plane on Google Maps was a plane in the air, captured by accident.
He added:
From every angle possible, it’s laying up against the mountain, and you can view it at ground level.
I can’t take talk of it being airborne seriously at all. As I say it’s a program I use all the time and I’ve seen many planes in flight.
Only time will tell what Ian and his brother find over the next few days.
If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via stories@unilad.co.uk
Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.