Pilot claims MH370 could have been found years ago if authorities listened to aviators

A former commercial pilot says flight MH370 hasn't been found because authorities refuse to look in the right place.

Byron Bailey, who flew for Emirates out of Dubai for 15 years, claims the missing Malaysian airlines plane could have been found years ago if they listened to pilots.

The "last search" for the plane that disappeared on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board Kuala Lumpur to Beijing ended on Tuesday, the Daily Mail reports.

Peter Foley, Programme Director for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's search for MH370, with almost certainly a part of the main flap from MH370, at its headquarters in Canberra.

Bailey said that search was 1,200km north of where he and other aviators believed the plane was likely ditched by pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

He called on the Chinese government, whose country had 138 citizens on board, to fund another search in a 4,000sq km area they believe the plane is in.

"Us pilots, we think we knew right from the get up and go where the aeroplane was," he told Miranda Devine's podcast.

"If they search there, I think there's a 90 per cent chance they'll find it."

Bailey said it was "just stupid" to search 1,200km north of where the plane ran out of fuel but the Australian Transport Safety Bureau wouldn't listen.

"The people doing [the search] don't have any aviation experience ... but they have stubbornly refused for four years to search 130km south of where it ran out of fuel," he said.

Byron Bailey, who flew for Emirates out of Dubai for 15 years, claims the missing Malaysian airlines plane could have been found years ago if they listened to pilots.

He claimed Malaysia, which offered $70 million to Texas-based firm Ocean Infinity if it finds the plane, of not wanting the wreckage to be found.

["They realised] this could be a massive liability and political problem if it's proved that the Muslim captain hijacked the airplane," he said.

"[The Australian Government] is being cowardly and sticking its head in the sand ... it's a murder of 138 people and they're ignoring that."

Bailey said it was "about time the Chinese showed some interest" and hoped they would "step in where we were too cowardly".

Bailey earlier on Tuesday said the plane must have been hijacked because only the pilot could have reprogrammed the plane's course.

"He wanted to hide the aircraft in as remote position as possible. He didn't want bits of debris floating around, he didn't want it to ever be found," he said.

Australia said a four-year search for the missing aircraft had been the largest in aviation history and tested the limits of technology and the capacity of experts and people at sea.

The Operational Search for MH370, published in the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's report, shows the "x marks the spot" moment, where the final attempted satellite handshake was recorded.

But Transport Minister Michael McCormack added there would always be hope of finding the vanished Boeing 777.

"Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the 239 people on board MH370," McCormack's office said.

"We will always remain hopeful that one day the aircraft will be located."

Malaysia signed a "no cure, no fee" deal with Ocean Infinity in January to resume the hunt for the plane, a year after the official search in the southern Indian Ocean by Australia, Malaysia and China was called off. No other search is scheduled.

Ocean Infinity chef executive Oliver Plunkett said the search would soon end after covering more than 112,000sq km of remote ocean floor - an area more than four times larger than the zone targeted by experts as the most likely crash site.

"I would firstly like to extend the thoughts of everyone at Ocean Infinity to the families of those who have lost loved ones on MH370. Part of our motivation for renewing the search was to try to provide some answers to those affected," Plunkett said in a statement.

"It is therefore with a heavy heart that we end our current search without having achieved that aim," he added.

Plunkett said he was pleased to hear the new Malaysian government had made finding the Boeing 777 that vanished with 239 people aboard a priority.

"Whilst clearly the outcome so far is extremely disappointing, as a company, we are truly proud of what we have achieved both in terms of the quality of data we've produced and the speed with which we covered such a vast area," Plunkett said.

"We sincerely hope that we will be able to again offer our services in the search for MH370 in the future," he added.

Australia, Malaysia and China agreed in 2016 that an official search would only resume if the three countries had credible evidence that identified a specific location for the wreckage.

The search area deemed by experts to be the most likely crash site was 9,650 square miles, an area roughly 25 per cent larger than Wales.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's transport minister, Anthony Loke, said a full report into MH370's disappearance would be published in the near future, but he did not give a date.

The shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion is seen on low level cloud while the aircraft searches for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Photo / AP

"I can assure you the final report will be published with full disclosure. There will not be any edits, or anything hidden," he told reporters late on Monday.

Asked whether the report would refer to controversial elements of the MH370 case, he said: "To me, whatever elements, we will just publish it".

The original search focused on the South China Sea before analysis revealed the plane had made an unexpected turn west and then south.

Australia co-ordinated an official search on Malaysia's behalf that scoured 46,000 square miles and cost A$200 million (NZ$2.17m), before it ended in 2017.

Last year, Australian authorities said the MH370 captain had flown a route on his home simulator six weeks before the disappearance that was "initially similar" to the course actually taken by the aircraft.

Peter Foley, who led the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's search efforts, told an Australian Senate hearing "control inputs" had been made to fly the airliner off course, but he could not say if one of the pilots had done so.

Malaysian investigators said in 2015 they had found nothing suspicious in the financial, medical or personal histories of the pilots or crew.

Danica Weeks, an Australian resident who lost her husband on Flight 370, urged Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to call on the new Malaysian government to be more transparent about what they knew about the mysterious disappearance.

"There've been so many theories and rumours and … we don't know what is true and what isn't,' Weeks told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

"I want Julie Bishop to say to the Malaysian counterparts now: 'what do you have? Where is the investigation at'?"

Foley, told an Australian Senate committee hearing last week that he still hoped that Ocean Infinity would be successful.

"If they're not, of course, that would be a great sadness for all of us," Foley said.