A number of eye witnesses on the island of Kuda Huvadhoo in the Maldives reported seeing a large low flying aircraft early in the morning of 8th March 2014. Blaine Gibson travelled to the island and interviewed the eye witnesses whose reports appeared credible. Several analysts reported that the aircraft was in fact MH370, which had disappeared the previous night somewhere over the Indian Ocean.
Don Thompson of the Independent Group investigated the sightings and found that a Saudi Arabian Airlines private VIP flight landed at Malé Velana Airport in the Maldives at 08:37 local time on 8th March 2014.
GDTAAA output using the WSPRnet data has been used to track a private VIP flight from Saudi Arabian Airlines to the Maldives. No ADS-B data is available for this flight.
The report can be downloaded here
Fantastic work Richard.
I can’t wait to see your analyse on MH370, and hopefully this leads to a new and successful search for the plane.
@Bruce,
Welcome to the blog!
Many thanks for your kind words.
There is certainly a high probability the aircraft seen is just as Don Thompson says.
Based on the initial witness description below another Saudi VIP aircraft, a Boeing 747 Reg HZ-WBT7 also remains a possibility until somebody put sit somewhere else.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Maldives+Sighting+MH370+Jumbo&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari
Dear Mr Godfrey ,
I´m new to this site, but I am very interested in the mystery of MH370. Despite reading some of the latest papers ( which are by the way a great example of what scientists are cabable of- Great work!) I am, to be honest, a little confused about the latest state of knowledge. Do you already/finally figured out where MH 370 is resting and which route the airplane took?
I would be happy if I could get a quick briefing. Lots of respect for you and your team for not giving up and continuing to research.
Yours sincerely
Fabian
@Viv,
Welcome to the blog!
Don Thompson is right in my view and you agree there is a high probability that the aircraft seen by eye witnesses was indeed the Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 777-286 registration HZ-AKF.
The Saudi Kingdom Boeing 747 HZ-WBT7 was not in the Maldives area or Malé Flight Information Region (FIR) on 8th March 2014.
The Malé FIR is a large area of around 500,000 nm2 and bordered by the FIRs from Chennai, Mumbai, Mauritius, Melbourne and Colombo.
I am in possession from good authority of a database with all aircraft movements on 8th March 2014 within the Malé FIR, whether arrivals, departures or overflies.
As I mention in my paper, eyewitness sightings by islanders on Kuda Huvadhoo of a low flying aircraft at various times between 06:00 and 08:00 local time on the morning of 8th March 2014 may be a Maldives DH8C en-route from Malé to Gan at 06:30 local time or the Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 777-286 en-route from Riyadh to Malé at 07:55 local time. There were no other aircraft whether commercial, private or military over Kuda Huvadhoo that morning between 06:00 and 08:00 local time.
A DH8C is hardly a “jumbo”.
A Boeing 777 is much larger but only has two engines, whereas a Boeing 747 is even larger and has four engines.
When eye witnesses report that the aircraft was “low flying” and they could “see the doors” then they might be able to count the number of engines.
Humaam Dhon Maniku, a secondary school student attending Grade 9 of the island’s school is quoted in a local paper as saying: “That even at that time it was something extraordinary, however he didn’t give much thought to it as he was not aware of any plane that has gone missing. Humaam said that he was getting ready to go to a weekend extra class at eight in the morning on that Saturday, while he was in the yard of his home which is about 100 feet from the islands harbour, he heard a loud noise to which he looked up and saw a huge plane flying very low over the harbour. It was around 7.30 – 8.00 am that day. He was fixated at the plane until it disappeared from his view and he is still sure that blue and red were the colours on the plane. He said he didn’t think there was any technical issues with the flight as he recalls it flew smoothly.”
@Fabian,
Welcome to the blog!
Many of the recent papers are discussing a new idea based on the WSPRnet database managed by amateur radio enthusiasts. This is a work in progress.
Prior to that we were investigating the 33 floating debris items found around the Indian Ocean, either confirmed or likely to be from MH370. My paper published at the start of this year describes this aspect in detail:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bzpwdjdiyz7yiry/MH370%20Floating%20Debris%20Drift%20Analysis%20-%201st%20January%202021.pdf?dl=0
Prior to that we were analysing the Inmarsat satellite data and possible flight paths followed by MH370 into the southern Indian Ocean. I wrote a paper together with Bobby Ulich, Victor Iannello and Andrew Banks in 2020, which describes this aspect in detail:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lszarw2w8qb2a3p/The%20Final%20Resting%20Place%20of%20MH370%20-%207th%20March%202020.pdf?dl=0
In my view, all the information we have points to a crash site in the southern Indian Ocean near the 7th Arc at around 34°S to 35°S.
I am hoping that the latest WSPR technology and analysis will give us a few more clues to the flight path followed by MH370 and a more precise definition of a crash site location. It will take to the end of November 2021 to complete this analysis.
Maldivians seeing the aircraft is correct and it came in Maldive newspapers the next day. But later this news was suppressed. Don Thompson story about Saudi private plane is just a crap to distract the attention. MH370 went straight downward from Maldives.
@Vj Shah,
Welcome to the blog.
What evidence do you offer to back your statement that “MH370 went straight downward from Maldives.”
I have it on good authority that the Saudi Arabian Airlines aircraft of the type B777 and registration HZ-AKF on a flight route RHU-MLE-PEK had an ATA at 08:37 local time on 8th March 2014 at MLE airport.