Missing MH370: Remote islanders claim investigators 'ignored' key sightings of low-flying plane

The island of Kudahuvadhoo has just 3,500 residents

But people living on the Maldives island of Kudahuvadhoo say their sightings have not been looked into by investigators

Residents of a tiny island in the Indian Ocean believe they could hold the key to solving the mystery of the vanished Malaysian Airlines MH370 flight.

But islanders living on Kudahuvadhoo in the Maldives say their sightings of a low-flying passenger plane on the day of the flight's disappearance have been ignored by investigators.

Eye-witnesses on the island, which has a population of just 3,500, say they saw a plane with the same red and blue stripes as the doomed Boeing 777 flying at an unusually low height past the island on March 8 last year.

Their accounts differ from calculations developed by flight experts which place its likely crash zone on an arc around 1,800 kilometres south of Perth.

However, investigators have yet to rule out vibrations measured at around the predicted crash time which were recorded near the Maldives - 470 miles south-west of Sri Lanka.

Local fisherman Abdu Rasheed Ibrahim, 47, told The Australian : "I watched this very large plane bank slightly and I saw its colours — the red and blue lines — below the windows, then I heard the loud noise.

"It was unusual, very unusual. It was big and it was flying low.

"I have seen pictures of the missing plane — I believe that I saw that plane. At the time it was lost, I strongly felt those people who were searching should come here."

Schoolboy Humaam Dhonmamk, 16, added he also saw the distinctive red and blue stripes while staring at the low-flying flight from his classroom.

He said: "I saw the blue and red on a bit of the side. Heard the loud noise of it after it went over. I told the police this too."

The calls come just days after Australian deputy prime minister Warren Truss appeared to suggest the search for the missing jet could be called off within weeks .

It comes ahead of a meeting from ministers of China, Australia and Malaysia will meet in Kuala Lumpur in two weeks to discuss the future of the mission.

Investigators have been searching the probable crash of a 60,000 square kilometre patch of the Indian Ocean - 1,800km off the coast of Western Australia - for seven months.

They are currently examining a Malaysian Airlines-branded towelette which was recently washed up on the coast of western Australia.