Stolen Passports May Prove To Be Key In Malaysia Airlines Disappearance

With the prime minister of Malaysia already confirming its missing airliner was deliberately diverted, the investigation’s focus now shifts back to the stolen passports reportedly used by two passengers to board the Malaysian aircraft.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that satellite and radar data clearly indicated that prior to the plane deviating from its intended course, the communications system was intentionally disabled, allowing the plane to fly undetected for a lengthy period of time across the Indian Ocean. This also has lead to the unsettling assertion that the Malaysia Airlines disappearance is “consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane.”

With that in mind the focus has shifted to the stolen passports used to board the plane by two Iranian men as previously reported by Inquisitr. According to Paul Yap, an aviation lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore via the Economic Times, this leads to a possible terrorist scenario involving the stolen passports and the two men:

“We have a scenario where terrorists make the pilots change course and switch off the transponders under duress, maybe threatening to kill passengers.”

In this case, the terrorists could be Pouri Nourmohammadi, 18, and Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza, 29, identified by Interpol as the individuals who boarded the plane with stolen passports. And while the two men have not been officially connected with any terrorist acts, the Malaysia Airlines incident has at least shown a light on a growing concern for world governments trying to combat terrorism: the stolen passport black market in Thailand. According to the Christian Science Monitor:

“It comes as no surprise to experts that the passports were stolen in Thailand, ground zero for global trafficking in fake and stolen passports. They cite the corrosive mix of police corruption, an impoverished class of residents, and scads of Western tourists, some attracted by a thriving sex trade, as major contributing factors.”

While airline security post 9/11 has been beefed up significantly, there are still ways to board a jet using stolen passports. Just how easy is it you may ask? According to CNN.com it’s a lot easier than you might think:

“In any major international airport, it’s not uncommon to have your passport checked four times or more between check-in and boarding the aircraft. But if passenger documents aren’t checked against Interpol’s database of stolen and lost travel documents, travelers using those documents can slip through layers of security.”

What do you think? Are the stolen passports used to board the Malaysian airline flight connected to its disappearance?