The speculation continues eleven days later for the whereabouts of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 with the latest eyewitness reports stating that the jumbo jet was seen flying over the Maldives islands almost eight hours after last radio contact was made.
Haveeru Online reports that residents of the remote island of Kuda Huvadhoo said they saw a "white aircraft, with red stripes across it" travelling north to south-east toward southern Maldives while making an "incredibly loud noise" as it flew low and slow overhead.
Despite the fact that several residents share the same story, some experts are doubting the timing. According to eyewitness reports, the plane was spotted at 6:15 a.m. local time on March 8, which is 9:15 a.m. Malaysia time. That's seven hours and 45 minutes after last radio contact was made, in which co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid was heard saying "All right, good night" over the Gulf of Thailand.
The final satellite ping was heard from the plane at 8:11 a.m. Malaysia time, meaning that this recent revelation could mean new developments in its whereabouts. The potential search area includes two major arcs that span 6,400 miles around where the plane took off.
With a full plane of 227 passengers, 12 crew, fuel and cargo, the Boeing 777-200ER could potentially stay in the air for eight hours, so the timing could work, although it would take much less time to travel that 2,000 miles. That is, unless the plane wasn't flying in a straight line, which is quite possible based on the fact that the Maldives residents say they saw it flying south-eastward. A direct flight from Malaysia to the Maldives would be a south-westward direction. The flight was originally scheduled to land in Beijing, China from Kuala Lumpur, which would be almost directly north.
But the Maldives witnesses stand by their stories. "I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before," one resident stated to Haveeru. "We've seen seaplanes, but I'm sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly."
Twenty six countries are now looking for the lost flight as theories continue to evolve. Is the pilot involved in a mass conspiracy based on the recent revelation of deleted files from his flight simulator? Was there a fire on board that caused a malfunction? Did the plane depressurize, instantly silencing the passengers and crew? Or was it something more sinister like a hi-jacking or a hack of the plane's computer system? Many of these theories have been debunked by science, but officials are concerned that the radio silence was deliberate.
This latest eyewitness report pins the jumbo jet in an area that's consistent with military radar tracking west of Malaysia.
