A French writer has said the US Air Force downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 because the military feared it was about to be used in a 9/11-style attack, international media outlets have reported.

According to Marc Dugain, the former CEO of now-defunct Proteus Airlines and a renowned author, the plane was shot down near a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean after it had likely been hijacked by a hacker.

Asking how in today’s world abundant with high tech devices a 63 metre-long aircraft could vanish without a trace, Dugain suggested there must have been a deliberate effort to hide evidence.

In an article published in Paris Match magazine, Marc Dugain revealed his theory that the missing aircraft didn’t go down anywhere near where authorities and rescue teams have been searching for a possible wreckage.

Instead, Dugain is convinced that the Boeing 777 with 239 people on board - mainly Chinese - crashed near the island of Diego Garcia. Dugain also suggests that due to the Boeing technology the aircraft was using, it is possible that the aircraft was hijacked by remote control and steered toward Diego Garcia.

Dugain said that his theory can be supported by Maldives residents he had spoken to. According to him, those people told him that they had seen an aircraft flying towards Diego Garcia with one fisherman claiming a plane bearing the Malaysia Airlines colours was flying at a really low altitude above.

The plane went off the radar while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.

Malaysian authorities initially rejected evidence with regards to Flight MH370. A British satellite company had informed the authorities that the plane was in the southern Indian Ocean and critical time was lost in the search as Malaysia chose to ignore the information.

Until the present day, there's no consensus about the reasons why the plane disappeared.