Stolen Passports Prompt Terror Concerns in Missing Jet, Officials Say
U.S. officials told NBC News on Saturday they are investigating terrorism concerns after two people listed as passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines jet turned out not to be on the plane and had reported their passports stolen.
“We are aware of the reporting on the two stolen passports,�” one senior official said. “We have not determined a nexus to terrorism yet, although it’s still very early, and that’s by no means definitive.”
An Italian man who had his passport stolen a year ago was on the passenger manifest for the jet, but his father told NBC News on Saturday that he was safe and on vacation in Thailand.
In Austria, the foreign ministry confirmed to NBC News that police had made contact with a citizen who was also on the passenger list, and who reported his passport stolen two years ago while traveling in Asia.
“We believe that the name and passport were used by an unidentified person to board the plane,” a spokesman for the ministry said.
U.S. officials said they were checking into passenger manifests and going back through intelligence. The revelations came hours after air traffic controllers
lost contact with Malaysia Flight 370 over the South China Sea.
It is unusual for one person to board a plane with a stolen passport and very rare for two to do it, terrorism analysts say. While the possibility that two people may have boarded the jet with stolen passports does not explain how it was lost, it does change how U.S. officials look at the incident.
The Italian on the passenger list was Luigi Maraldi, 37. His father, Walter Maraldi, told NBC News from Cesena, Italy: “Luigi called us early this morning to reassure us he was fine, but we didn’t know about the accident. Thank God he heard about it before us.”
Asked earlier whether terrorism was suspected in the disappearance of the jet, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said authorities were “looking at all possibilities,” The Associated Press reported.