Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Searching Wrong Area Says Oil Rig Worker That Possibly Saw Jet In Flames

It has been almost a year since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 inexplicably disappeared during its scheduled trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and fired oil rig worker Mike McKay, who believes he may have seen MH370 in flames, also believes the fruitless searchers continue to comb the wrong areas for the lost Malaysian jetliner.

Mike McKay, a 57 year-old New Zealander, was fired from his job on an oil rig in the seas off the coast of Vietnam after sending an email to Vietnamese officials describing what he believes was likely the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, reports the Daily Mail.

“I’ve thought about it and thought about it, over and over and while I cannot say for certain that the burning object in the sky was definitely MH370, the timing fits in with when the Malaysian plane lost contact… I have been trying to disprove that what I saw was an aeroplane ever since.”

McKay’s over three-decades-old oil industry career was terminated when his email went public. With the world abuzz regarding the whereabouts of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, and Mike a potential eyewitness, his rig operator, Idemitsu, and his contractor and rig owner, Songa Offshore, received an avalanche of inquiries that clogged their communications and crippled their operations, according to Stuff.

“This became intolerable for them and I was removed from the rig and not invited back,” said McKay, who proceeded to lay low and go back to New Zealand.

But now, after nearly a year and no sign of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370’s final resting place and/or destination, the New Zealander has been compelled to again speak out, despite critics that accuse him of making his story up, or those that say McKay made his claim of seeing MH370 going down in flames over the South China Sea with absolute certainty.

“Unfortunately my words were misinterpreted. I was careful to say that I ‘believed’ I saw the aircraft come down. The email was never for public consumption,” says McKay. “And if it was (Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370) that has been missing for so long, then the search in the southern Indian Ocean is clearly in the wrong place.”

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared without a trace, with 239 passengers and crew on board, on March 8 of last year. The official search has involved ships, planes, people, and equipment from several countries, and has long focused on the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia.

According to the fired oil worker, he woke up around midnight on the oil rig, Songa Mercur, off the coast of Vietnam, and went out on deck for a cigarette and some coffee.

“I got up at around midnight Vietnam Time, which is one hour ahead of Malaysian time, and wandered around to an area at the back as usual for a cigarette and a coffee. It was a beautiful night with good visibility because it had been raining, which always tends to clear the air… It would have been some time after 1 a.m. (Malaysian Time) that I saw a sudden glow of fire above the horizon, which caught my immediate attention, although, of course I could not have known whether it was definitely an aircraft or not.”

But once he learned of the lost Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, McKay tried to let authorities know what he’d seen, finally, three days later, sending his email to Vietnamese officials describing his possible eyewitness account of the Malaysian airliner going down.

But, of course, all McKay’s email did was raise speculation and get him fired rather than prompting a search in the area where he thought he’d seen MH370.

Since then, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 family members continue to mourn without closure to their MH370 nightmare. MH370 families become particularly furious when officials make seemingly erroneous decisions such as last month’s by Malaysia, the country declaring Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370’s disappearance an “accident,” even though the whereabouts of the passengers, crew, and plane itself remains a complete mystery.

In the mean time, the endless waiting and wondering continues for the families of lost loved ones aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

[Image via Getty Images News]