Where is Blaine Gibson now? Inside the life of MH370’s debris finder who went into hiding

After Netflix released MH370: The Plane That Disappeared this month, everyone has even more questions about the 2014 disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Flight, which was carrying 239 people. One of the main ones being: Where is debris finder Blaine Gibson now and does he actually have links to Russia?

Blaine, a former lawyer now adventurer, has found more pieces of MH370 debris than anyone else in the world. But since starting his personal, self-funded, mission to find the wreckage of the plane began, he’s been met with death threats over his connections to Russia and his pursuit to find more debris.

So, does Blaine Gibson actually have links to Russia?

Blaine spent a few years in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union where he worked as a legal consultant. He has always denied working for the Russian Federation, which was called into question after theories emerged that Russian terrorists hijacked MH370, took it to Kazakhstan and altered the flight’s tracking data.

“I’ve been very involved in the search for Malaysia 370, just out of personal interest and in a private group – not in a for-profit way or journalistic way,” Blaine told CNN in March 2016 after he’d started to receive death threats over his supposed links to the Kremlin after working as a lawyer in Russia.

“I went for the one-year commemoration in Kuala Lumpur and met some of the family members and families, and it inspired me to keep on looking,” he added, explaining he’d funded his search for MH370 through his various business investments and selling the house he inherited – rather than through any Russian means.

Where is Blaine Gibson now?

Blaine, who’s now 66, went into hiding for several years after the accusation he was a Russian spy led to death threats, being photographed and followed by strangers. Speaking in the Channel 5 documentary, MH370: The Vanishing, he explained: “I started to get death threats from anonymous people. Things like ‘No plane, no Blaine’ and telling me to give up my search.

“One made a call to a friend of mine saying I would not leave Madagascar alive,” he continued. “I was being followed and I was being photographed and, yes, it’s very disturbing. It’s intimidating.”

Blaine grew up as an only child in San Francisco in the 50s and has lived in Seattle for the last 35 years. However, it’s believed he doesn’t spend much time in his city and is still travelling and exploring after years under the radar.

MH370: The Plane That Disappeared is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Inside MH370’s cargo theory that claims to link the United States Air Force to the missing plane

• Phantom cell phone theory: Why MH370 passengers’ mobiles still rang after plane was lost 

• Every location debris has been found from missing flight MH370 over the past nine years