Nine years ago the huge plane completely disappeared, leaving the world baffled over what had happened to the 239 people onboard the jet.

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MH370 was travelling from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to China‘s capital Beijing when it lost contact and disappeared in March 2014.

Kit Olver, 77, has finally come forward with a key piece of information which could help unravel the mystery of the missing plane.

The retired fisherman, who was out in his deep-see trawler, hauled what looked like the wing of the aircraft from the sea in 2014.

He recovered the mysterious piece about 55km off the south-east coast of southern Australia, in the Southern Ocean.

After debris from the plane was discovered on beaches across east Africa, it was concluded that MH370 had crashed somewhere in the south Indian Ocean near western Australia.

If Olver’s suspicions lead to a discovery of debris from the plane it could point to an alternative crash site.

Olver said he was patrolling his “secret” area for a special species of fish when his fishing net got snagged on something heavy.

The stunned fisherman told the Sydney Morning Herald: “It was a bloody great wing of a big jet airliner.

“I’ve questioned myself; I’ve looked for a way out of this. 

“I wish to Christ I’d never seen the thing … but there it is. It was a jet’s wing,” he said.

Olver, who made the discovery in autumn of 2014 after the plane disappeared in March, is one of only two surviving crew members from his trawler now.

The other member, George Currie, corroborated his story.

He said: “It was incredibly heavy and awkward.

“It stretched out the net and ripped it. It was too big to get up on the deck.

“As soon as I saw it I knew what it was. It was obviously a wing, or a big part of it, from a commercial plane.

“It was white, and obviously not from a military jet or a little plane.”

Olver, who at one point had a pilot’s license, also said he believed the wing was too big to belong to a smaller private plane.

He told his crew to let the £10,000 net, destroyed by the wing, back into the sea.

After arriving back on the mainland, Olver contacted the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) to tell them about his discovery.

He was allegedly told it was probably part of a shipping container that had fallen from another vessel in the area.

The ASMA, however, told the Sydney Morning Herald they have no official records of his call.

Olver told Daily Mail Australia that he feels his conscience is clear now that he has gone public with his discovery nine years on.

He said: “It was from years ago, it was on my conscience and I’ve cleared it now and told my story.

“So whether it’s believed or acted on is out of my hands.

“Anything else that I could come up with would be conjecture or supposition or my idea and I’m not really interested.”

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur and was heading to Beijing with 239 people on board – it never reached its destination.

Passengers included Chinese calligraphers, a couple on their way home to their young sons after a long-delayed honeymoon, and a construction worker who hadn’t been home in a year.

But at 12.14am on March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines lost contact with MH370 close to Phuket island in the Strait of Malacca.

Before that, Malaysian authorities believe the last words heard from the plane, from either the pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah or co-pilot, was “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”.

Early theories focused on the idea that the plane had flown north into central Asia.

Although this idea has been discredited it had some validity at the time due to the course military radar was tracking it on.

The possibility of a northern landing was refuted by satellite company Inmarsat which owned the satellite which had been tracking it.

The idea was further discredited when parts of the plane were washed up off the coast of Africa.

The conclusion by most that the plane crashed somewhere near western Australia suggests there was some sort of malfunction before the plane crashed, causing it to change direction in an attempt to find somewhere to land.

The accident then caused a “mass hypoxia event” – a sudden loss of oxygen – which knocked out the crew and passengers before they could land.

The plane would then continue on autopilot until it ran out of fuel.

This theory is favoured by the Malaysian government and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).

There are numerous variations on this rather wild conspiracy theory but most centre on Captain Zaharie deliberately crashing the plane, or as part of some bizarre murder-suicide idea.

Another expert Richard Godfrey believes the pilot feared he was being followed so flew the jet in circles, before landing the aircraft at high speed to help make sure it was lost forever.

There has never been any proof that Zaharie diverted the plane on purpose.

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