Flight MH370 took off from Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur and disappeared more than a decade ago. Just 40 minutes after departing for Beijing, China, the plane mysteriously disappeared.
The disappearance of MH370 remains one of the biggest mysteries in the modern aviation industry. Due to the lack of clear evidence for MH370's fate, a series of theories have been proposed, along with witnesses claiming to have seen the plane on that fateful journey.
One of them was the British female sailor Katherine Tee. Reporting the incident that occurred on March 8, 2014, Katherine Tee and her husband Marc Horn traveled by boat from Cochin city, India to Phuket, Thailand. While crossing the Indian Ocean at night, the British female sailor saw a burning-out plane-like object splashing into the sky.
Katherine Tee said she was on the night shift and was the only one up on the boat. The object resembling the plane that she saw was orange in color.
First of all, I saw something that looked like a burning plane. After that, I thought I might be confused. It caught my attention because I had never seen an air plane with such orange lights, so I wondered if I didn't know what it was," said Katherine Tee.
The female sailor emphasized: "I can clearly see the shape of the plane. It appears to be longer than regular aircraft. There was something that looked like black smoke flying behind."
Katherine Tee said he had seen other plane in the sky at the time and said that if it were the plane on fire, the pilots of the other plane had reported the incident.
The female sailor kept quiet until the boat docked at Phuket because she was arguing with her husband at the time and was advised by local sailors to report what she saw. However, she was still uncertain about what she witnessed, so she continued to remain silent for a few more months.
Katherine Tee's thinking changed when he heard that the search for MH370 had been suspended due to technical problems a few months later. She decided to check her diary.
The first time I told Marc was after hearing the news from the radio. We checked the GPS data and realized that I might have actually seen that plane," said Katherine Tee.
After posting the data on the Cruisers Forum, the couple Katherine Tee discovered that the couple could be close to one of MH370's simulated journeys, causing Katherine Tee to decide to send an official report on what they saw.
It is not yet clear whether the Katherine Tee report was ever thoroughly investigated by the Joint Coordinating Center (JACC), but searches for MH370 have been launched.
As of 2025, the third search for MH370 has been launched. However, the latest search was postponed in April due to the unseasonal location of the Indian Ocean.
