MH370 debris hunter Blaine Gibson: ‘We have to solve this mystery’

The man who has traveled across the Indian Ocean finding potential pieces of debris from missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, including a number of personal items, says he won’t stop until the mystery is solved.

Blaine Gibson, a U.S. lawyer from Seattle, is spearheading a self-funded hunt for the missing plane in an exhaustive search that has taken him from the Maldives to Mauritius and Myanmar.

“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,” Gibson told CNN in March.

MH370’s disappearance is one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries. The plane vanished from radar while en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, with 239 people on board, on March 8, 2014.

MH370: What’s next after discovery of plane wreckage?

“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 has trawled beaches, spoken to witnesses and interviewed people who have reported debris – all in an effort to discover the truth of what happened to the ill-fated flight.

“Most experts and the official search authorities believe the plane flew south rather than north,” Gibson wrote in a blog on his search. “However one year of searching the Southern Indian ocean has failed to discover any debris.”

There is still no way to know for sure why Flight MH370 ended, but we are learning more about the lives of those on board. CNN is remembering them through snapshots shared with us.

Rodney and Mary Burrows were looking forward to becoming first-time grandparents after their return home to Australia.

Australians Catherine and Robert Lawton were traveling with friends on vacation when the flight disappeared.

Paul Weeks was traveling to Mongolia for a new job as an engineer. His wife says Paul left behind his watch and his wedding ring before the trip, in case anything happened to him while he was away. Anderson spoke with Paul's brother & sister who said they are coping by spending time together as a family.

Chandrika Sharma, left, was on Flight 370; her daughter Meghna and husband K.S. Narendran wait patiently, trying to manage their anxiety and longing for her return.

Muktesh Mukherjee and Xiaomo Bai had been vacationing in Vietnam and were on their way home to their two young sons in Beijing.

76-year-old Liu Rusheng, an accomplished calligrapher and one of the oldest passengers on the flight, was in Malaysia to attend an art exhibition with his wife.

Teens Hadrien Wattrelos and Zhao Yan are shown in a photo on Wattrelos' Facebook page. The photo is captioned, simply, "I love you," in French.

Firman Chandra Siregar, 24, studied electrical engineering in Indonesia and was on his way to Beijing on board Flight 370 to start a new job at an oil company.

Patrick Francis Gomes, center, was the in-flight supervisor for the missing plane. His daughter describes him as a quiet person with a sense of humor.

Ch'ng Mei Ling, a Malaysian citizen who lives in Pennsylvania, is a process engineer at a chemical company.

We do not have photos of all 239 passengers, but we wanted to remember that there are loved ones around the world missing them right now. View CNN's complete coverage of Flight 370.

Remembering the passengers of MH370

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A happy discovery?

His first discovery came during a holiday. “Mozambique is really separate from this – even though it’s on the Indian Ocean. I didn’t come here to look for the plane,” he said.

“It was my 177th country to visit. I’m here as a tourist, but since I’m passionately interested in MH370, and I am on the Indian Ocean I thought, ‘Why not take a boat out and ask some of the local people where stuff washed ashore from the open ocean?’”

Gibson and the owner of the boat he chartered for the weekend found the plane part washed ashore on a sandbar.

“What went through my mind when I found it is that this is something that could be part of an airplane and could be part of that airplane,” Gibson said, referring to MH370.

The story of such a discovery might have seemed even too perfect.

“It seems so unlikely, too, but the thing is nature works in mysterious ways,” Gibson said. “Why does the ocean do what it does? I don’t know. Maybe this is part of that plane, maybe this is part of another. It’s small and it’s very light so maybe it’s just from some light aircraft. It would just be so unbelievable if it actually is from 370. That’s exactly what went through my mind.”

After analyzing the pieces, Australian officials confirmed that they were “highly likely” to have come from MH370.

Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared on March 8, 2014. As of October 2016, authorities have definitively linked three pieces of debris to the plane, while four other pieces are believed to "almost certainly" come from the missing aircraft. A flaperon from a Boeing 777 was found on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean in July 2015. Authorities later confirmed the debris came from MH370.

Two pieces of debris were found in Mozambique, in December 2015 and February 2016. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said both pieces "almost certainly" came from the missing plane.

An examination of stenciling and other identifiable features were used to link the debris to MH370.

Two more pieces of debris, found in March 2016, were also deemed to have "almost certainly" come from MH370, according to the ATSB.

One piece is believed to be from the plane's Rolls Royce engine, while the other matched a Boeing 777 interior closet panel.

A piece of aircraft debris found in Tanzania in June 2016 and transported to Australia. The country's Infrastructure and Transport minister said it was confirmed as coming from MH370 in September 2016.

A left outboard flap trailing edge section found on the island of Mauritius in May 2016. In October, it was confirmed as coming from MH370.

Missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 debris

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“The search must go on”

Since his first discovery, Gibson has discovered several other pieces of potential debris from the plane, including a section of Rolls Royce engine cowling found in South Africa in March.

In June 2016, Gibson discovered between 15 to 20 washed-up personal items on a Madagascar beach, including a small backpack, a computer case and several cabin-sized carry-on items.

A number of personal items suspected to belong to passengers of missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 have been found on Riake Beach, Madagascar.

Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared without a trace during a journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014. There were 239 people aboard when it vanished.

Pictures of the recently found items have been shared with relatives of the missing passengers for possible identification.

The items were found by Blaine Gibson, who travels around the region in a quest to discover what happened to the Malaysian Airlines flight. Other items, also found on Riake Beach by Gibson, are currently under investigation as potential debris.

Gibson has also previously found suspected debris from MH370 off the coast of Mozambique.

MH370: Suspected debris and personal belongings found in Madagascar

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Gibson said the new personal items were discovered on the same beach as a number of his other MH370 finds and they needed to be investigated.

“I took pictures of them, collected them and I turned the pictures over to family members so they could share among themselves and see if they recognized anything,” he told CNN.

MH370 relatives: ‘I don’t want money – I want to pursue the truth’

But Gibson said although Malaysian investigators still hadn’t collected another five pieces of wreckage he had found in his ongoing search for MH370, he wasn’t going to stop.

“Until I or someone else finds the plane and the truth about what happened to it and the passengers, [I’ll keep going]. The search must go on, it can’t stop when the present search area is exhausted. We have to solve this mystery.”