An engineer claims he’s used a computer program to discover flight MH370 was put into a 20-minute holding pattern before vanishing.

The doomed jet was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014 when it disappeared with 239 passengers on board, sparking one of the greatest aviation mysteries ever.

Richard Godfrey has been tracking the Boeing 777’s flight path using WSPRnet – which uses radio signals – and claims to have made a major breakthrough.

He says the plane was put into a holding pattern for around 22 minutes near the coastline of Sumatra, an Indonesian island, reports AirlineRatings.

Godfrey says using WSPRnet he is able to track all aircrafts going back as far as 2009.

The engineer also claims he will be able to trace MH370 to its final resting place by the end of this month.

He said: “What I found out, without looking for it, was that MH370 entered a race track holding pattern at around 19:12 UTC.

“I was surprised to discover that not only did MH370 enter a holding pattern but that the holding pattern lasted for around 22 minutes until 19:34 UTC.

“On entering the holding pattern MH370 was 150 nm [nautical miles] from the coast of Sumatra and 40 nm from the 2nd Arc.”

There have been a number of theories around the disappearance of the plane including that pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, committed a mass murder-suicide.

Godfrey’s claims raise questions over why Shah would put the plane into a holding pattern.