Shraman Mitra
Netflix’s ‘MH370: The Plane That Disappeared’ is an eye-opening documentary that attempts to discover what happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 after it vanished while on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The documentary tries to recreate the incident through one-on-one interviews with relatives of the victims, journalists, people who found the debris, and others, before presenting three popular theories about the disappearance. Likewise, Blaine Gibson, one of the people interviewed on the show, is known as the person who has found the highest number of MH370 debris to this date. Although his success was met with several threats and accusations, Blaine insists he only wants to get to the truth. Besides, with viewers now interested to know more about Blaine, let’s find out where he is at present, shall we?
Who Is Blaine Gibson?
A native of the United States, Blaine Gibson is a lawyer by profession. However, he often describes himself as an adventurer and has actually traveled to different corners of the world in order to investigate particular incidents or civilizations. In fact, according to reports, before focusing on the disappearance of MH370, Blaine went over to Siberia, where he looked at the Tunguska meteor with his own eyes. Besides, while his fascination for the Maya Civilization made him look into their sudden and strange collapse, Blaine also traveled around in an effort to get his hands on the Ark of the Covenant. Additionally, he spent a few years in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and worked as a consultant for business owners.
The Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur in the early morning hours of March 8, 2014, as it was scheduled to travel overnight to Beijing, China. Things went quite smoothly at first, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary as the flight neared the end of Malaysian airspace. Subsequently, according to protocol, the air traffic controllers in Malaysia wished the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, goodnight before asking him to contact the people in Vietnam. However, moments before the plane was about to enter Vietnamese airspace, it went electronically dark and disappeared from all radars. That was the last anyone ever spotted or heard from MH370, as its fate remains unclear to this very day.
Although there was no sign of the missing plane for months, further information came from the company INMARSAT, which had a satellite on board MH370. INMARSAT claimed that according to their data, once the plane went electronically dark, it veered sharply left from its usual flight path before disappearing in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This theory was further strengthened once people on Réunion Island found a Boeing 777 flaperon on July 29, 2015. While reports speculated that the flaperon washed up on shore after spending months in the Indian Ocean, most believed it belonged to the missing MH370 airplane. That was when Blaine jumped into the investigation, and after speaking to natives who initially came across the flaperon, decided to hunt for more missing debris. Hence, in the following months, Blaine single-handedly located several pieces of MH370 debris that had washed up in places like Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, and Madagascar, among others.
Blaine Gibson is Continuing the Quest for MH370 Truth
By the time Blaine started locating the debris, others had already floated several theories about the missing aircraft. In fact, one of the theories speculated that the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, might have staged a mass murder-suicide, while another alleged that Russian terrorists took control of the aircraft before taking it to Kazakhstan. The second theory, which also accused the Russians of altering the INMARSAT data, grew immensely popular, and unfortunately, people who doubted Blaine’s discoveries found links between the adventurer and the Russian Federation.
This made numerous others accuse Blaine of being a Russian spy, and rumors claimed that he was planting debris across the East African shore and other places to throw people off the scent. Furthermore, apart from his discoveries getting undermined, Blaine and his friends received personal death threats, and the adventurer was followed around and photographed during his search. In fact, a 2022 article mentions that the threats and accusations got so horrifying that Blaine had to go into hiding for several years, waiting for the storm to blow over.
Blaine currently resides in Seattle, Washington, although reports mention that he does not spend much time in the United States. When questioned, the adventurer denied working for the Russian Federation and insisted that he had been searching for MH370 debris in an effort to get to the truth and not for personal profit. Besides, he received help from British Engineer Richard Godfrey in the investigation, and their joint report published in 2022 indicated that MH370 did not have a soft landing on water, but instead, the impact of the crash shattered the aircraft into numerous small pieces. Nevertheless, Blaine is determined not to give up on his search until he or someone else gets to the truth and is hopeful that the aircraft and its black box will be discovered soon.
Read More: Fuad Sharuji: Where is MH370 Crisis Director Now?
