MH370 Military radar in the Maldives did not pick up any trace of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, despite reports that islanders has sighted a “low-flying” jet some five hours after the plane went missing on March 8.

“Further to the surveillance conducted thus far, none of the military radars in the country have detected a trace of the missing plane,” stated a Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF) spokesperson.

The spokesperson, according to The Star , asserted that surveillance is being carried out with “heightened level of vigilance” to find the missing aircraft, and claimed in a statement that even airport radars did not detect the plane passing through.

It was yesterday reported by Maldives' longest serving newspaper Haveeru that residents on the remote island of Kudahuvadhoo reported seeing a "low-flying jumbo jet" at 6.15am on March 8.

Eyewitnesses described the aircraft as having "red stripes" and was travelling North to South-East towards Addu City, the southern tip of the island country.

"I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. 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," an eyewitness was quoted as saying.

The eyewitness added that the aircraft made a loud noise, prompting several residents to come out of their houses.

Haveeru also quoted Mohamed Zaheem, a councilor of Kudahuvadhoo, as saying that residents had raised the alarm about the incident.

'Unusual for flights at that time'

A local aviation expert was quoted as saying that the likelihood of any aircraft flying over the island at the reported time was "extremely low".

Flight MH370, which took off from Kuala Lumpur destined for Beijing vanished from civilian radar over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 passengers and crew on the early morning hours of March 8.

It was later detected by military radar to have made a turn back, flew westwards and possibly went on in an unknown direction for more than six hours.

Malaysian military radar last detected flight MH370 in the Straits of Malacca at 2.14am.

Based on MH370's final automatic satellite ping which remains active even though the aircraft's communication systems were mysteriously turned off, investigators believe the plane could possibly be in one of two locations dubbed the 'northern corridor' and 'southern corridor'.

The northern corridor includes regions stretching from the northern Thai border to the borders of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and the southern corridor covers Indonesia to the south of the India Ocean.

A total of 26 countries have mobilised their resources to look for the plane as it remains missing for the 12th day today.