A housewife from Johor has claimed she may have spotted the missing MAS Boeing 777-200ER aircraft partly submerged in the waters off Andaman islands on March 8, when she was on a flight back from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Raja Dalelah Raja Latife, 53, saw a "silvery object" that upon closer examination "looked like the tail and wing of an aircraft" in the water, The Star today quotes her as saying.
Raja Dalelah noted that in-flight monitors indicated that she was then flying over the Indian Ocean, and that the plane and had just passed the South Indian city of Chennai.
The mother of 10 left Jeddah at 12.30am, Malaysian time, on March 8 and said she spotted the object at 2.30pm.
But, she added, she only realised that she may have spotted the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 after landing at the KL International Airport at 4pm and was told about the missing plane.
"It looked like an aeroplane," The Star quotes Raja Dalelah as saying. "Throughout the journey, I was staring out of the window of the aircraft as I couldn't sleep during the flight."
First report at Sentul police station
Encouraged by her son-in-law, who is a policeman, Raja Dalelah lodged a report at the Sentul district police headquarters the same day.
She then made a second report on March 14, hoping that the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) would take her seriously, she said.
However, the English daily also quoted an anonymous pilot who laughed off Raja Dalelah’s claim. The pilot questioned how she could have spotted the object in the sea from 35,000 feet high in the air.
Meanwhile, Bernama reported Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ( left ) giving his assurance that the seven Indonesian nationals on board MH370 have been checked out and that they have no terrorism links.
Yudhoyono said he was in touch with the latest MH370 developments through his Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa and he hoped the people would not speculate about the Indonesians on the flight.
The plane has now been missing for 14 days and it has sparked the world’s biggest ever hunt. There were 239 people on board.
