Kriti Mehrotra
While there’s no denying losing loved ones in any manner is incredibly hard and heartbreaking, things obviously do get utterly overwhelming when you don’t even know what happened to them. Unfortunately, as profiled in Netflix’s ‘MH370: The Plane That Disappeared,’ that’s precisely the case for the family members of those 239 passengers as well as crew members onboard the titular flight. Amongst them is bereaved husband-father Ghyslain Wattrelos — so now, if you simply wish to learn more about him, his experiences, and his current whereabouts, we’ve got the details for you.
Who is Ghyslain Wattrelos?
Although French native Ghyslain had been residing in Beijing, China, with his family for almost six years, he was back in his homeland alongside his college-going son Alex in early March 2014. On the other hand, his devoted 51-year-old wife Laurence, 17-year-old son Hadrien, and 13-year-old daughter Ambre were enjoying a week-long beach vacation near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The family had actually planned these trips in such intricate detail that both their return flights were in the early hours of March 8 to ensure they could soon have as much time together as possible.
“The day before, I had spoken to my wife,” Ghyslain candidly revealed in the Netflix production. “Everything was fine. They were happy we were meeting. Then there was another message from my daughter saying, ‘I’m at the airport in Kuala Lumpur. I’m happy because I’m going to see my daddy again.'” But alas, they never could reunite since MH370 suddenly vanished without a trace in the early hours of the fateful day — and the family man reportedly only learned of it from two diplomats the moment he stepped off his own flight from Paris.
“At that moment, time stops,” Ghyslain stated in the docuseries. “[All I could think was,] ‘How’s that possible? Is this a nightmare? Please wake me up!’ I said. ‘Are You sure?’ And [the diplomats] answer, ‘No, we aren’t sure of anything.'” Though the worst part for him was breaking the news to his surviving 20-year-old son in France, especially as the first thing the latter said upon picking up the call was, ‘Tell me they weren’t on that plane.” The truth is he himself couldn’t accept what’d transpired, which is why he texted his missing wife and kids every night before going to bed for a long time in the hopes of some miracle.
Ghyslain actually moved back to Paris from the Chinese capital for good shortly after the incident upon realizing he had to keep the search for his family going, following which he filed a judicial case. The basis of his charge ostensibly falls under “act of terrorism,” stemming from the possible theories the plane was either intentionally drowned in the ocean, hijacked, or shot down by a third party. This terrorism category is the highest ranking in France, so he laid out his case in such a way that the assigned judges would have to conduct investigations until a sure conclusion could be reached.
Where is Ghyslain Wattrelos Now?
Ghyslain was actually told by a supposedly credible source that “the Americans know full well what happened because two American AWACS (specialized air defense systems) were monitoring the area at the time the plane disappeared.” He hence personally believes MH370 was shot down, and the grieving families have been carefully lied to as well as manipulated from the very beginning as a cover-up to something dirty. “Somebody has decided to kill my family; maybe it’s for a good reason. Is it to avoid another 9/11?,” he once said. “…There was something and someone on this plane that should not arrive in Beijing, but I don’t know why yet.”
Coming to his current standing, from what we can tell, Ghyslain is an engineer and business executive based in Paris, France, from where he’s determined to still help officials locate the missing aircraft. All he wants are some concrete, much-needed answers so as to be able to properly say goodbye to his family before continuing to keep them alive in his heart without a single blemish of doubt or uncertainty. “What’s good about the French justice system,” he revealed in the original documentary series, “[is that] they can’t stop; they’re not allowed to stop until they find the truth… It works for us. I don’t want to stop either until we have an answer. If it takes ten years, then it takes ten years.”
