The two stolen passports used on Malaysia Flight MH370 were bought consecutively-numbered tickets, which increases the likelihood terrorism is involved in the disappearance of the plane. The two stolen passports were of an Italian and Austrian man. There are even reports of two more stolen passports used to purchase tickets for the flight that are currently being investigated.
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| Two stolen passports used MH370 bought consecutively-numbered tickets |
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Two separate ticketing agents at the airline confirmed that the men were booked to fly onwards from Beijing at 11.55am on March 8 to Amsterdam on a KLM flight in economy.
The two men also bought consecutively numbered tickets – 7842280116099 and 7842280116100 – suggesting that they had purchased them at the same time.
“What are the chances that one person boards a Malaysia Airlines plane on a stolen Caucasian passport?” asked one aviation expert who asked not to be named. “Maybe it is one in a thousand. Two? One in a million,” he added.
After checking the names of passengers Kozel and Maraldi, the Austrian and Italian governments said that neither man was on board. Both had their passports stolen in Thailand over the last two years, and Mr Maraldi had been issued a new one according to the Italian media.
Dr Dunleavy said it was not Malaysia Airlines’ responsibility to validate a passport. “We just need to make sure that if we see a passport, it doesn’t look like it has been forged and it has a legitimate visa. We look to ensure they have a visa, if they have a visa and it looks legitimate and everything else about the customer is legitimate we will load them on the plane,” he said.
Another spokesman for the airline added that all the photographs had matched the passports of the passengers.
However, the fate of flight MH370 remains a mystery. Aviation experts said they were puzzled by the absence of debris on the waters of the Gulf of Thailand, the last known location of the plane.