A Mormon missionary wounded in the attack on Brussels airport had also been at the scene of the Boston marathon bombing and was in Paris during the attacks there last November.

Nineteen-year-old Mason Wells was injured with two other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the two bombs exploded at Zaventem airport on Tuesday morning.

He, Richard Norby, 66, and Joseph Empey, 20, had been taking a French colleague to the airport when the bombs went off.

Wells had been near the finishing line in Boston when two pressure cooker bombs exploded, according to the Daily News. He was waiting for his mother Kymberly Wells, who was running in the race.

LDS Bishop Scott Bond told the paper: "It's incredible he'd be so close to more than one of these. I think any of us would be seriously shaken, but I think he's someone who could handle this better than anybody. He's the kind of young man to somehow turn this into a positive. He's a terrific young man."

Wells was in Paris during the November attacks, though in a different part of the city.

His father Chad Wells told ABC News: "This is the third time that sadly in our society that we have a connection to a bomb blast." He added: "We live in a dangerous world and not everyone is kind and loving."

Both Wells and Empey are believed to have suffered burns and other injuries.

Utah's Deseret News quoted a friend of the Wells family as saying Wells had "burns to his hands and legs and some to his face".

"Most of the damage is around his foot and ankle," said Lloyd Coleman. "A heel took the most damage, and the doctors are repairing it, but the family doesn't know how bad the injury is."

Among other victims was a US Air Force service member from Joint Force Command Brunssum, the Netherlands, who was injured at the airport with members of his family.