A man is claiming to have tracked down the missing passenger plane, MH370, on Google Earth after its disappearance four years ago.
The flight, which was carrying 239 people, was travelling from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing on March 8, 2014, when it disappeared above the Indian Ocean a few hours into its journey.
Despite one of the biggest surface and underwater searches in aviation history, which involved China, Australia and Malaysia, costing around £120 million, the plane was never found and the search was officially suspended in January last year, after 1,046 days.
Small pieces of debris from the plane were washed up on islands in the Indian Ocean and on the African coast.
However, an Australian mechanical engineer, who says he’s worked on crash investigations for over 25 years, believes he’s found the plane using Google Earth.
Peter McMahon states he’s spent months examining images from NASA, as well as Google Earth, to try to pinpoint the missing aircraft.
The exact spot, which he believes shows the outline of a plane, is said to be below the surface of the water 10 miles south of Round Island, north of Mauritius.
Speaking to the Daily Star, Peter says he’s sent the image to the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, who’ve apparently confirmed it could be the missing plane:
Four Americans were sent to Australia to oversee the findings of MH370.
They have made sure that all information received has been hidden from the public, even our government – but why?
He also said authorities ‘do not want the plane found as it’s full of bullet holes, finding it will only open another inquiry.’
According to the BBC, back in January this year, the company Ocean Infinity, leased a Norwegian research ship for the search in new areas.
The vessel is said to carry several autonomous submarines in the hope of being able to search much faster than the last operation, yet the US company has not revealed the estimated cost of the operation.
However, CNBC have stated the release of a full report into MH370’s disappearance has been ‘suspended’ pending the outcome of the new search by the private US-based seabed exploration firm.
The news of the full report being possibly held back has sparked fears of a cover-up.
In their annual interim statement sent to families of those aboard the plane, Malaysian investigators said this was because any new evidence uncovered is ‘likely to significantly affect the investigation’ and ‘in the event that the aircraft is found, the team will conduct further investigations’.
Check out the video below about the disappearance:
[ooyala player_id=”5df2ff5a35d24237905833bd032cd5d8" width=”undefined” height=”undefined” pcode=”twa2oyOnjiGwU8-cvdRQbrVTiR2l” code=”U4dnVwZTE6lpUy0jPI7NmDDiLdQt0hsY”]
According to the Independent, a search area around 35 degrees South is 25 thousand square kilometres north of the original suspected crash zone.
Despite ending the search last year, the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments have said they’ll reopen the investigation if new credible information comes to hand.