A Kiwi oil-rig worker sacked after reporting what he thought was the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, insists the search is in the wrong place.

Mike McKay, 57, told MailOnline he stood by his email to officials about his possible sighting of the Malaysian Boeing 777 off the coast of Vietnam.

The aircraft, with 239 passengers and crew on board, went missing between Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 last year and has never been found. The official search involving planes and ships from several countries, including New Zealand, has focused on the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia, and an underwater sonar search is continuing.

"I've thought about it and thought about it, over and over and while I cannot say for certain that the burning object in the sky was definitely MH370, the timing fits in with when the Malaysian plane lost contact," McKay said.

"I have been trying to disprove that what I saw was an aeroplane ever since."

Previously suspected locations and search areas included the Indian Ocean, but McKay said he thought he saw the jet over the South China Sea.

He had gone to bed on the oil rig Songa Mercur, off the coast of the Vietnamese town of Vung Tau, at his usual time of 7pm, he said.

He got up about midnight, local time, which was one hour ahead of Malaysian time, and wandered out for a cigarette and a coffee.

"It was a beautiful night with good visibility because it had been raining, which always tends to clear the air," McKay said.

It would have been sometime after 1am [Malaysian time] when he saw a "sudden glow of fire" above the horizon, he said.

Three days later, he sent an email to Vietnamese officials describing what he saw.

After working in the industry for more than 30 years, he was "kicked off" the rig after the email went public.

McKay also made a statement to New Zealand Police for Interpol on his return home, he told Stuff in June.

Last month, family members of the 239 people on board flight MH370 vented their anger after the country declared the disappearance an "accident" despite the mystery remaining unsolved.

Napier-born Danica Weeks, now living in Perth, is still waiting for news. Her husband Paul Weeks, 39, from Christchurch was on his way to a Mongolian mine for his first stint of a fly-in, fly-out job when he boarded MH370. She has not yet found the words to tell their children, Lincoln, 4, and Jack, 1, what happened.

"I'm waiting every minute of every day for news," she said.

McKAY'S EMAIL:

THE SEARCH: