A French investigator has highlighted an “enormous red flag” in the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight.
The MH370 flight, which crashed in March 2014 around 38 minutes after leaving Kuala Lumper Airport, carried 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.
Since it vanished a decade ago, no wreckage has ever been discovered despite extensive searches for the ill-fated plane.
Many believe that the aircraft came down in the southern Indian Ocean.
A French investigator has highlighted an 'enormous red flag' in the search for MH370
GettyFlorence de Changy, who has been investigating the crash for almost 10 years, is challenging key parts of the official version of events.
She has found evidence from Vietnamese air traffic control to suggest that the plane did not crash in the Southern Indian Ocean, something she is “surer than ever” about.
Debris from the plane was first discovered on a beach on Reunion Island, a French territory near Mauritius, in July 2014.
However, Changy is sceptical that the debris, which was found around 3,500 miles from Malaysia, is actually from the doomed plane.
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The final flight path of MH370WikiCommonsShe told The Sun: “There are good reasons not to believe it is from MH370. First, they never even established the provenance of the flaperon. This is shocking. Secondly, they said the flaperon suffered two consecutive shocks, which does not fit a crash in the ocean.
“Also, that piece of broken composite material is not meant to float. But in the fiercest ocean on the planet, it must have travelled up to ten miles a day in a straight line over 500 days to reach Reunion.
"Plus, it lost its ID plate, which is an enormous red flag. I am certain it was planted or is unrelated.”
Changy also dispelled rumours that the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 52, brought down the plane, a suspicion that even the then-Malaysian Prime Minister raised.
The plane (not pictured) carried 227 passengers and 12 crew
FlickrShe insisted that he was innocent after reading confidential police reports and speaking to people who knew him.
Changy also discussed the contents of the cargo manifest, which contained 4.5 tons of fresh mangosteens. She was perplexed to their presence on the aircraft, as it was not the right season for the tropical fruit.
She believes the mangosteens, which had allegedly not been x-rayed, could have been a cover for a different object that was being smuggled in. This could have resulted in an emergency landing.
Relatives of those who died on board the plane are desperate for a new search to be commissioned to help find the wreckage of MH370.
Jacquie Gonzales, whose husband Patrick Gomes was on the aircraft the day it disappeared said: "I thought we would have answers way, way earlier."