Could This be Terror Attack? Two People On The Missing Aircraft Were Traveling On Stolen Passport

The possibility of a further two stolen passports used on the same flight is now being investigated as it emerges that at no point were the identities of the passengers checked against its lost and stolen database.

Had these checks been carried out it would have come to light that two passengers were travelling on two passports stolen in separate incidents over the last two years.

Both documents were used to buy tickets booked in Maraldi and Kozel's names on March 6, 2014, and issued in the Thai city of Pattaya, a popular beach resort south of the capital Bangkok.

Italian Tourist Luigi Maraldi shows his current passport after misplacing his old one in 2013

  Luigi Maraldi, 37, the owner of one of the passports, was listed as the sole Italian national on the missing flight. This afternoon he told how the document was stolen while he was holiday in July last year on the island Phuket. The owner of the other stolen passport was Austrian citizen Christian Kozel, 30, who's name also appeared on the passenger manifest.

Mr Kozel discovered he had been listed when uniformed police officers turned up at his home in Salzburg at the weekend. He said: 'I was pretty shocked when I saw them at my door, and was relieved to find out that although I was dead, at least it was only on paper.' But it still left him with a lot of worried friends and relatives that he had to reassure after it was reported that he was dead.

He said he had reported the passport as stolen while he was in the same part of Thailand two years ago, and that it had apparently then been used by someone illegally. In a statement issued today, the France-based international police body said information about the thefts was entered into its database after they were stolen in Thailand.
Officials from Italy and Austria also confirmed that the travel documents of both men were reported stolen in Thailand.