Petronas marketing manager Puspanathan Subramaniam, 34, travelled frequently for work. But when he was about to set off to Beijing on a business trip last Friday, his children cried and asked him not to go.

“My grandchildren acted weirdly and did not want my son to leave the house,” his father Subramaniam Gurusamy (right), 59, told the New Straits Times.

He said two of his grandchildren hugged his son’s legs and cried, not wanting their father to leave the house. “He nearly cancelled his flight but I told him to go ahead,” he said, adding that the family had to rush to the airport because they were running late. “How I wish we did not make it and he missed the flight.”

His final words to his father before boarding MH370: “I’ll be back in a week. Then we can cut cake together for sister’s birthday, appa (father in Tamil).”