An Indian IT expert believes he may have found a satellite photo of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, the Hindu newspaper reported today. 

The image showed a plane, possibly a Boeing 777, over the Andaman Islands, India's strategic islands in the Bay of Bengal. 

The Hindu said Anoop Madhav Yeggina had been scurrying through innumerable images of DigitalGlobe Satellite QB02 over the past few days until he stumbled upon an image which almost took his breath away. 

The 29-year-old, like tens of thousands of others around the world, was involved in the crowd-sourcing project to find the missing plane. 

''I am confident that the image is that of the missing plane because of many reasons,'' Anoop told the Hindu. 

''First giveaway is the fact that the image was captured just above a forest and very close to the Shibpur air strip of Andaman Islands. 

''The air strip is exclusively used by the defence forces with no permission for civilian aircraft in this area.'' 

He said the image appears to show the plane flying extremely low. 

''Most importantly, the standard scale measurement and colour of the missing plane matches with that of the plane in the image,'' Anoop said. 

Authorities have yet to comment on the picture. 

MALDIVES SIGHTING 

Maldives residents have reported seeing a ''low-flying jumbo jet'' on the morning that the missing plane vanished from civilian radar and lost contact with ground controllers. 

The sightings from the small island nation in the Indian Ocean, about 700 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka, offered some consistencies with the missing flight MH370. 

The large plane was reported to be white with red stripes, which was consistent with the Malaysia Airlines fleet. 

It was said to have made an incredibly loud noise as it flew over the the island of Kuda Huvadhoo at about 6.15am on March 8, according Maldives newspaper Haveeru Daily. 

"I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before,'' one witness told the newspaper. 

''We've seen seaplanes, but I'm sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly. 

''It's not just me either, several other residents have reported seeing the exact same thing. Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too." 

Mohamed Zaheem, the island councillor of Kuda Huvadhoo, told the newspaper that other residents had also spoken of the incident. 

The residents claimed the plane was flying towards the southern tip of the Maldives, the Addu Atoll. 

Investigators have not commented on the reported sighting in the Maldives.