Malaysia Airlines MH370 Father Calls Accident Declaration 'An Insult'

The husband and father of missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 passengers says that the declaration that the incident is "an accident" and that all on board are dead is "an insult."

"This announcement is an insult to my people. It is a personal insult," said Ghyslain Wattrelos, in an interview with French magazine Paris Match.

On January 30, the Malaysian government said the "search for survivors" had ended, although the search for the plane's wreckage would continue. "The definition of the term 'accident' includes 'the aircraft is missing'" according to international aviation law, Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation said in a statement.

Wattrelos's wife Laurence, daughter Ambre, and son Hadrien were on board MH370, returning from a holiday in Malaysia. Also traveling with the family members was Hadrien's friend and Lycee Francais International de Pekin classmate Zhao Yan. Ghyslain and eldest son Alexandre did not join the other family members on the trip. The Wattreloses were planning to move back to the Paris area in June 2014.

Wattrelos has not given up hope.

"Every day, I also tell myself that I will never give up. I will make another trip to Malaysia ... perhaps the truth will come out. We must continue to fight. It's so big that they cannot have hidden it. I have a son who no longer has his mother or his sister or his brother. I have a son to whom I owe an answer," he said in the interview.

One hundred fifty-two of the passengers were Chinese, most of them local. A number of Beijing-based expatriates were also aboard.

Malaysian and Australian officials have been searching for wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean, about 1,800km west of Perth, Australia. Satellite pings indicate the plane may have taken this course and continued until it ran out of fuel or was forced down.

The plane's disappearance has become the greatest aviation mystery of the 21st century, and will remain so until its wreckage is discovered and its deviation from the flight plan explained.

Photo: Kickstarter/Paris Match