EERIE satellite images show how MH370 might have crashed in the South China Sea – thousands of miles from the main search area.
Satellite sleuth Cyndi Hendry found what appeared to be a stack of plane debris in the ocean in the days after the plane vanished – but she claims her startling discovery was ignored.
MH370 was on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board when contact was lost and its disappearance remains the greatest unsolved aviation mystery.
The packed Boeing 777 dropped off radar screens in Malaysia just seconds after it crossed into Vietnamese airspace over the South China Sea.
In the days following the flight’s disappearance, Cyndi joined the search and scoured through satellite images along its planned flight path to find any wreckage.
Working with Tomnod – a network of sleuths who comb through satellite imagery – she was given a search area near where MH370 vanished in the South China Sea.
As she studied the images, she spotted what appeared to be a cluster of white plane debris – which she claimed matched the blueprint of a Boeing 777.
Nine years later, Cyndi is still searching satellite images for new clues.
In her latest finding, she claimed to have found a piece of debris which is “an almost perfect match” to the “M” of the lettering of Malaysia Airlines on the jet.
Speaking on the new Netflix doc on the disappearance of the flight, Cyndi said: “When I saw the anguish on the faces of these family members, I thought I had to do something.
“It just tugged on my heartstrings.
“My hobby is photography, so I have an eye for detail.
“I thought I could be a great person to help look for this plane from the satellite images.”
As she studied the images, she was initially met with dozens of photos of a dark empty ocean – before spotting a streak of white.
She said: “The satellite images were empty. It was just the blackness of the sea. Then you press next, more black scans. So much black.
“And then finally, there’s something white.”
Cyndi spotted what appeared to be a mass of white debris in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam – near where MH370 dropped off radar screens – thousands of miles away from the main search area in the Indian Ocean.
She then matched up the shape of the debris with a blueprint of the aircraft.
“I pulled the schematics off the internet for a B777,” she said.
“And I was able to identify a piece as the nose cone. That’s when I started saying, ‘Holy c**p! There’s a piece of debris. There’s the airplane’.
“And then I started seeing more pieces. Something that looked like the fuselage. Something that looked like the tail. I got goosebumps.
“I literally cried because I knew someone had died there. Because I knew that was part of the plane.
“That meant they were no longer alive and that wasn’t the answer the family members were looking for.”
And the more she searched through the satellite images, the more debris she found.
Cyndi, from Florida, said she immediately contacted investigators to share her findings – but claims she was repeatedly ignored.
“I knew what I had,” she said. “I knew I had evidence in the South China Sea.
“The more I searched, the more debris I found. I feel certain that this is where MH370 ended up, off of Vietnam.
“At that point, I already had contacted Malaysia Airlines. I tried to reach out to so many people to tell them that this debris exists.
“Nobody was listening to me.”
And then, Malaysian investigators announced they would be ending all search operations in the South China Sea.
The decision came after data from British company Inmarsat showed MH370 might have crashed into the Indian Ocean.
It followed fresh examination of eight satellite “pings” after it vanished from radar screens.
But Cyndi was left baffled by the data – which concluded the plane travelled down an entirely different corridor, away from the South China Sea.
“I knew what I had in the South China Sea was the debris of MH370, and I was not going to just sit around and not be vocal about that,” Cyndi said.
“I already had notified Tomnod that this debris existed. But I never got an acknowledgement that I tagged debris.
“It was like nothing ever happened.
“So I did everything I could to try and get someone’s attention that the debris was off Vietnam in the South China Sea.”
After her findings fell on deaf ears, Cyndi was contacted by investigative journalist Florence de Changy.
Cyndi said: “I told her what I had. I told her, we need to remember we have the oil rig worker that said he saw fire in the sky that night.
“The Cathay pilots said they saw a large debris field. What happened to them? Where’s that evidence?”
Florence said Cyndi’s theory “was just one more voice telling me that there must have been a cover-up of sorts of what truly happened in that region that night”.
She believes the official version of events is shrouded in deceit.
Florence has claimed the doomed jet was shot down by the US Air Force in a bid to stop secret tech reaching China.
She said the Americans intercepted the plane by using signal jamming technology.
A wide variety of explanations have been put forward for the disappearance of MH370 – including that it was mass murder-suicide by Captain Zaharie.
Expert Richard Godfrey claims the pilot flew the jet in circles to possibly check he wasn’t being followed – then landed the Boeing 777 at high speed in a bid to ensure it was lost forever.
Former French Air Force air traffic controller, Gilles Diharce, believes the pilot attempted a “soft ditching” – a controlled emergency landing – during the flight’s final descent into the ocean.
Other theories suggest the plane was hijacked, or the plane was in “cruising mode” when it crashed.
