A Kiwi who lost his job after reporting what he thought was a burning aircraft on the day MH370 went missing is still out of work.

Mike McKay's life changed when he reported a sighting off the coast of Vietnam on March 8, 2014, while on a break from his shift on the Songa Mercur oil rig around the time the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished, with 239 passengers and crew on board.

McKay, 57, saw what he thought was a plane in flames at high altitude and sent his employers an email about it, which was leaked to the media.

Supplied The email Mike McKay sent that cost him his oil rig job off the coast of Vietnam.

After the email was published, including his name and place of work, the rig operator, Idemitsu, and McKay's contractor and rig owner, Songa, were overwhelmed with media queries that blocked their communications.

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He was paid up until the end of his work period, or hitch, and released from his contract early.



In his email, he said:



"I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines plane come down. The timing is right."



Two years on from the disappearance, the fate of flight MH370 remains one of the world's most baffling and enduring aviation mysteries.



McKay is still out of work and enjoying time off because "no-one is looking for oil at the moment."

He said he had many unanswered questions after speaking out but the distances reported at the time did not fit with the generally accepted route of MH370.

Satellite data was used to decide the search area by analysing a series of "handshakes" between the aircraft and orbiting hardware to lead the Australian authorities to identify the "seventh arc" as the most likely flight track.

The seventh and final handshake was used to extrapolate the most likely flight path and the basis for marking a search area, an area that has been expanded to 120,000 square kilometres in an immense task led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

ATSB A map of the ocean floor, with the search area for the Malaysia Airlines plane marked out in yellow.

McKay said he was out for a smoke when he spotted what he thought was a burning aircraft.

"Of course, I ended up looking like a fool. But what happened to me is of no consequence considering those who lost family on the flight.

"I sent an observation in a confidential email hoping it would help find the loved ones of the families.

"This was leaked to the media. I saw something but the distances from the last known position make my observation being the plane unlikely under the generally accepted route the plane took after contact was lost."

Vietnamese authorities sent a search and rescue flight from Vung Tau the next day, he said, but this operation was stood down when the initial response focused on the Andaman Sea, off the west coast of Thailand.

"I have many questions.

"How did the flight return across the Malay Peninsula and fly over the F16 base at Butterworth and the Penang Airport basically unnoticed?

"This moved the search away from the South China Sea.

"Why did it take six days for the primary radar data to be released? What were the two sonar locators investigated in the Indian Ocean?

"Where is the metal stress reports of the part found on Reunion Is? This would tell how the plane broke up.

"The pilot would have tried to circle until daylight away from the flight paths of other planes. The [seventh] arc on which the plane was lost (if the data is to be believed) could put the break-up back in the South China Sea or immediately south of Sumatra.

"Not off the west coast of Oz (Australia)."

McKay, a drilling fluids consultant, worked in Southeast Asia for the past 35 years and in Vietnam for the most part since 2008 before losing his job and shifting back to New Zealand.

His reported sighting was not formally investigated, but he did provide a statement to the New Zealand Police for Interpol.