Community Chat

[Another new name Sue]

Now, now, girls--I'll be the judge of the above bickering:

Pink, you are nit-picking.

Blue Collar, you were only adding additional facts about the Air France event.

[madcity411]

On 3/9/2014 lulu2 said:

I wonder how someone gets through security with a stolen passport.

Recently I lost my passport overseas. When I applied for a temporary one the next day, they told me if I found my original, do not try to use it. It had been cancelled in the system so if I tried to use it, I would find myself surrounded by security guards.

Inside job. Ground crew, or other person(s) at airport working with them. They are probably looking into that. JMO.

[dooBdoo]

For those interested, the link I posted (Post #17) has an ongoing conversation among some people in the aviation industry. Note the first comment is the most recent, and you have to refresh the page to see new responses as they are posted:

Crash: Malaysia B772 over Gulf of Thailand on Mar 8th 2014, aircraft missing

http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b&opt=0

[mgm2]

PARIS (AP) — Interpol said Sunday that no country checked the police agency's database that held information about two stolen passports used to board an ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight.

"Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol's databases," Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said in a statement.

Even though the Interpol has been sounding the alarm about passport fraud for years, people have managed to board flights a billion times without having their passports checked against its stolen-documents records, Interpol said.

In a sharply worded criticism of shortcomings of national passport controls, the Lyon, France-based agency also said it was examining other suspect passports and working to determine the true identities of the passengers who used the stolen passports to board the Boeing 777 that disappeared Saturday — less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for Beijing.

Information about the thefts of an Austrian passport in 2012 and an Italian passport last year was entered into Interpol's database after they were stolen in Thailand, but that no checks of the stolen passports were made "by any country" before the flight Saturday, the police body said. "Unfortunately," it added, few member countries systematically search its databases to see whether stolen travel documents or passports were being used by passengers.

In an interview with The Associated Press in January 2010, Noble had warned that "the greatest threat in the world" was that at the time, a half-billion international air arrivals worldwide took place in which travel documents were not compared against Interpol databases. Some countries have woken up to the threat more than others: In 2006, U.S. authorities scanned the database about 2,000 times — but did so 78 million times just three years later.

For years, Interpol has asked why countries would "wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates," Noble said Sunday. "Now, we have a real case where the world is speculating whether the stolen passport holders were terrorists, while Interpol is asking why only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure that persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights."

Noble said he hoped "that governments and airlines worldwide will learn from the tragedy of missing flight MH 370 and begin to screen all passengers' passports prior to allowing them to board flights

[Marienkaefer2]

On 3/9/2014 PinkSugar said:

On 3/9/2014 BlueCollarBabe said:

On 3/9/2014 Marienkaefer2 said:

It took two years to find the Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009. This could take s long time to find out what happened here.

Actually bodies and debris from that crash were found within 5 days. It took nearly two years however to find the black boxes from the ocean floor and to come to a conclusion about the cause.

I believe this is what she mean't, why the nit-picking.

PinkSugar, thanks for getting what I meant.

BlueCollarBabe, thanks for pointing out where I was incorrect, vague, or not specific enough.

[Wuzzup]

I am thinking that the two stolen passports definitely have everything to do with this mystery. I hope not but my gut is saying yes!

[TaxyLady]

On 3/9/2014 Wuzzup said:

I am thinking that the two stolen passports definitely have everything to do with this mystery. I hope not but my gut is saying yes!

I thought that too. But I heard someone on the news say that they could be drug traffickers and nothing to do with the crash. apparently it is common in the area.

[Puzzle Piece]

You posters are up to date with things more than the media. Any news on this incident?

[shesallthat]

On 3/9/2014 Wuzzup said:

I am thinking that the two stolen passports definitely have everything to do with this mystery. I hope not but my gut is saying yes!

i agree. thought the same thing when i was reported over the weekend.

[Yuban3]

Stolen passports could have something, or nothing to do with the plane's disappearance.

It could have been used for illegal immigration, or for trafficking of some kind (drug, human).

Nobody knows for certain yet.

Not even the authorities.

So, while terrorism is a possibility, it's not the only possibility.

I'm waiting to hear more, just like everybody else, and until then, I'm keeping an open mind to all possible scenarios.