Michael Hoebel, 60, said he had found an image of what appeared to be the plane in one piece in the Gulf of Thailand — the exact place where the missing Malaysia Airlines plane made its last communication with air traffic control before falling silent in the early hours of March 8.
The Boeing 777 vanished from radar an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Why that happened is still a mystery.
Using the online satellite imagery website, TomNod, Hoebel said he was shocked to find the plane resting in what appeared to be an unbroken state.
“I was taken aback because I couldn’t believe I would find this,” he told a local TV news channel.
Despite Hoebel’s claims, the search for the missing plane will continue under the waters of the Indian Ocean.
Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said it is now unlikely that any aircraft debris will be found on the ocean surface, so the hunt for the plane will now be entering a new phase.
Abbott described the search as “probably the most difficult search in human history”.
Standing alongside search co-ordinator, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the prime minister said the new phase would focus “under the sea”.
The air search for MH370 wreckage was set to resume Monday after it was suspended due to bad weather over the weekend.
Sea swells were expected to reach four to five metres, with a cold front predicted to leave the search area.
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