Female Sailor Thinks She May Have Spotted #MH370 In The Sky Above The Indian Ocean On The Night It Got Missing
Katherine Tee, a British sailor, was crossing the Indian Ocean en route to Phuket, Thailand when she saw what appeared to be a plane that was on fire with black smoke trailing behind it in March - possibly on the night MH370 went missing.
The 41-year-old, who had been at sea for about 13 months with her husband, had kept the spotting of the plane to herself as she was unaware of its significance at the time.
But now, she's decided to break her silence and has filed an official report with authorities which could become a new lead into the search for the long lost jet.
Ms Tee was sailing from Cochin, India with husband Marc Horn, 50, but was alone on deck when she saw the aircraft.
'I was on a night watch. My husband was asleep below deck and our one other crew member was asleep on deck,' she told the Phuket Gazette.
'I saw something that looked like a plane on fire. That's what I thought it was. Then, I thought I must be mad… It caught my attention because I had never seen a plane with orange lights before, so I wondered what they were.
'I could see the outline of the plane, it looked longer than planes usually do. There was what appeared to be black smoke streaming from behind it.'
Ms Tee, from Liverpool, said two other planes were visible in the night sky.
'There were two other planes passing well above it – moving the other way – at that time. They had normal navigation lights. I remember thinking that if it was a plane on fire that I was seeing, the other aircraft would report it,' she said.
'And then, I wondered again why it had such bright orange lights. They reminded me of sodium lights. I thought it could be some anomaly or just a meteor.
'It was approaching to cross behind our stern from the north. When I checked again later, it had moved across the stern and was moving away to the south.'
The 41-year-old had been at sea for 13 months sailing from Cochin, India to Phuket, Thailand with her husband Marc Horn, 50, and their pet dog
A map showing the projected flight path of MH370 crossing the yacht astern. This is just how Ms Tee had remembered which then convinced her to file a report
Ms Tee explained that she kept her observance to herself as the long voyage had taken a toll on her marriage.
She hadn't spoken to her husband for about a week and it wasn't until she arrived in Phuket on March 10 that she first heard of the MH370 tragedy.
Ms Tee said she told local yachties what she thought she had seen.
'Some suggested I should say something, that [what I saw] might have been it. Most said that the flight was heading toward Vietnam. I wasn't sure of the date or time [of the sighting]. I am still not,' she said.
'I did think that what I saw would add little, and be dismissed with the thousands of other sightings that I assumed were being reported. I thought that the authorities would be able to track [the plane's] GPS log, which I assumed was automatically transmitted, or something like that.
'Most of all, I wasn't sure of what I saw. I couldn't believe it myself, and didn't think anyone would believe me when I was having trouble believing my own eyes.
'I didn't even consider putting out a Mayday at the time. Imagine what an idiot I would have looked like if I was mistaken, and I believed I was. So I dismissed it, and got on with the business of fixing myself and my marriage.'
It was only when she heard some news on a radio report last Saturday explaining that a survey ship involved in the search for MH370 was returning to port due to technical problems.
This is what prompted Ms Tee to tell her husband and then began reviewing her yacht's log.
That is when we checked our GPS log and realised that perhaps I really did see it,' she said.
Mr Horn posted data maps of the yacht's course across the sea on yachting website Cruisers Forum.
It was then discovered that the couple's 40-foot vessel was near one of the projected flight paths for MH370.
The flight path was estimated during the initial search period, after experts realised that Malaysian defense forces had discovered a 'ping' that could have been the lost aircraft.
A map was created by Cruisers Forum member 'europaflyer' by using Google Earth to show the yacht's position compared with the projected flightpath for MH370.
The map unveiled that the plane would have passed the yacht astern from port to starboard, which is just as Ms Tee had recalled.
'This is what convinced me… to file a report with the full track data for our voyage to the relevant authorities,' she said.
The couple filed the report with the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) on Saturday and the Australian organisation tasked with co-ordinating the search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. They also followed up with a second email to the JACC on Sunday.
Since doing so, Ms Tee wishes she had acted sooner.
'Will this help the authorities of the families get closure? I have no idea. All I can confirm is that I have since learnt that we were in the right place at the right time, so it seems possible, but I chose to sweep it under the carpet and now I feel really bad,' she said.
'Maybe I should have had a little more confidence in myself. I am sorry I didn't take action sooner.'
No confirmation has been released by the JACC that they've received the report. It is unknown whether or not the search body will investigate these claims.
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