Several residents were disturbed by a loud roaring noise in the early morning and rushed outdoors to see a very low-flying object described as a "jumbo jet" painted red and white which appeared from the northeast, overflew the island, and departed on about a 175 true heading over the horizon. Doors were clearly visible on the flying object and the noise was described as exceptionally loud.
It was suggested that this occurrence might be connected with the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 from Kuala Lumpur which had occurred a few hours earlier that morning; however, analysis of the latter flight's presumed position seems to indicate that it could not have been in the area at the time.
The incident occurred in an area where low-flying commercial aircraft are never seen, as there is no nearby airport out of which such an airplane could have operated. Air traffic controllers in Mal��, some 100 miles to the northeast, confirmed that no known commercial aircraft were operating in the area at the time. The description is inconsistent with any known military aircraft, and the behavior is anomalous for a large jet aircraft, which would have been expected to be at cruise altitude had it transited the area.
The object departed in the direction of Addu Island,but no one there reported observing it. The only land on the projected flight path beyond Addu is the coast of Antarctica, some 4,200 miles to the south (though the path would have passed close to two uninhabited islands enroute, Grande Terre and Heard Island.)
Parallels are suggested with the Scandinavian "ghost flier" sightings of 1933-34, which also involved sightings of detailed, realistic airplane-like objects in contexts where no known real aircraft could possibly have been.
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