Tim Akers, 56, had been studying Australian waters off Perth for years[MERCURY]Tim Akers, 56, had been studying Australian waters off Perth for years, in a hunt for the remains of lost WWII ship the HMAS Sydney.
His search for the vessel had been in the same waters as thought to contain the doomed Malaysian Airlines jet, off the coast of Western Australia.
So far international efforts by air, sea and satellite have failed to find the missing plane.
But, despite never leaving his chair in North Yorkshire, Mr Akers now thinks he might have discovered where Flight MH370 went down with all 239 people on board.
In August 2006, Mr Akers claimed to the local press in Wetherby, North Yorkshire, to have found HMAS Sydney - despite 60 years of government and international searches.
His claim was then seemingly verified in March 2008 when the wreck was discovered by American marine scientist David Mearns near the same location Mr Akers had predicted.
Mr Akers uses a method of combining images from different parts of the light spectrum.
With software he has developed, Mr Akers claims to be able to look 75ft beneath the Earth's surface and 10,000ft under the sea.
By processing data from satellite images from Landsat 7 - NASA's primary photographic satellite and the basis for Google Earth - he has been scouring the area for missing Flight MH370.
Mr Akers said he has now identified a section of what he believes is the tail of the jet off the coast of Vietnam - around 1,000 miles from where the plane took off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
His findings appear to support reports this week from a former pilot Michael Hoebel, from New York, US, who believes he found the wreckage of Flight MH370 off the coast of Thailand.
Mr Akers claims to have now identified sections of the aircraft near to where Vietnam authorities received a report from oil workers who saw a burning plane falling out of the sky.
Mr Akers - who is referenced as an independent researcher with the National Maritime Museum - said the jet having crashed in the South China Sea was far more plausible than Flight MH370 making it to the current search area in the Southern Ocean near Australia.
Images taken by Mr Akers from satellite scans appear to show what he claims are a tail, wings and other debris.
He said: "The problem with the debris field in the Southern Ocean is that it has to be considered - what other material could be mimicking the debris?
"The only material that could be giving off signals randomly and persistently and multi-coloured debris is remnants from the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 which is still trapped in currents.
Mr Akers believes he has pinpointed the plane's location [MERCURY]"The Japanese earthquake was the same magnitude and its debris is still travelling across the Pacific Ocean - it too will have things which are making noise on scans in the sea.
"The very fact that no debris from a crashed aircraft has been seen or found at sea or on land or beach in Australia so far gives good reason to doubt there's any truth in it ever having been there.
"Reports from the pilot in the US that the plane is seen off Thailand would back up my findings because the plane would break up soon afterwards and the currents in that region are strong."
Mr Akers believes there have been witnesses, debris, aviation fuel and what he believes are jet aircraft parts from Flight MH370 in the South China Sea.
He said his images also appeared to show ships registered to Vietnam have been in contact with the wreckage.
He added: "There's no question it could be anything else, because aircraft parts are very distinctive.
"Having seen the oil rig worker's report of the crash and NASA's satellite images of the area it would seem strange the Malaysian authorities have dismissed the area out of hand.
"Logically they should have checked it out by aircraft at low altitude and by a surface warship, but it looks like they chose not to. That in itself is very odd.
"Fortunately the water there is shallow as it's on the continental shelve and there will be debris all over the sea floor."
An email from oil worker Mike McKay, from New Zealand, on the Songa-Mercur rig off the coast of Southern Vietnam appeared to confirm a sighting of a plane on fire on the day Flight MH370 went missing.
Despite being corroborated by various news sources, Vietnam officials dismissed the sighting after saying they found no debris in the area.
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