US pilot claims to have found MH370 on satellite image

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-04-30

The underwater vehicle Bluefin-21 is released into the water to search for
the missing flight on April 16. (Photo/Xinhua)

Michael Hoebel, a 60-year-old pilot from New York, says he has found Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 after searching through thousands of satellite images on the internet, reports the website of the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily.

The pilot looked through thousands of images on crowd-sourcing website TomNod and found a white object that he believes could be the missing airliner. Hoebel estimated that the object is 210 feet long given the scale on TomNod's map, which matches Boeing's data. He located the object in an area off the coast of Thailand where the MH370 made its last contact with ground control.

Despite Hoebel's reported finding, the multinational search for the missing plane continued in the Indian Ocean. Australia prime minister Toby Abbott said it has been the most difficult search in human history.

No trace of the MH370 plane has been found despite two weeks of underwater search efforts. The underwater vessel Bluefin-21 has searched 400 square kilometers of the seabed and has found nothing.

The plane has been missing for 53 days since taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8. One hundred and fifty-three of the 227 passengers on board were Chinese nationals.