Just saw this latest development. It's so disheartening.
U.S. officials told NBC News on Saturday that they are investigating terrorism concerns after revelations that two people apparently boarded the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner with stolen passports.
The officials said that they had found no clear link to terrorism. There are other criminal reasons, for example drug smuggling, that stolen passports might be used to board a plane.
Two names on the passenger manifest of the plane, Malaysia Flight 370, matched passports reported stolen in Thailand, one from an Italian man and the other from an Austrian man, according to foreign governments and NBC News sources.
The news, hours after the jet disappeared over the South China Sea with 239 people on board, significantly changed how U.S. officials looked at the disaster. The officials said they were checking into passenger manifests and going back through intelligence.
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 its still very early, and thats by no means definitive.
There was still no sign of wreckage more than 24 hours after air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane, a red-eye from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. It vanished in relatively clear weather, without sending a distress signal, at what analysts said would have been cruising altitude. In a possible clue, Vietnamese planes spotted two oil slicks consistent with jet fuel in the water off Vietnam.
On board were 227 passengers and 12 crew. Most of the passengers were Chinese. Three were Americans one adult and two children, according to the passenger manifest.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mis...als-say-n47861
