Air India Flight 182

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Air India Flight 182
1985-06-10 VT-EFO Air India EGLL.jpg

The crashed VT-EFO a few days before the attack
Accident summary
Accident type Terrorist attack
place Atlantic , about 180 km SW of Ireland
date June 23, 1985
Fatalities 329
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Boeing 747-200
operator Air India
Mark VT-EFO
Surname Emperor Kanishka
Passengers 307
crew 22nd
Lists of aviation accidents

On June 23, 1985, a Boeing 747 on Air India Flight 182 ( flight number : AI182) crashed into the Atlantic Ocean as a result of a bomb explosion off the coast of Ireland . The Air India machine was on a scheduled flight from Montréal via London Heathrow and New Delhi to Bombay . All 329 inmates were killed in the attack. It was up to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 , the heaviest by terrorists plane crash caused.

A connection with another bomb explosion at Tokyo Narita Airport around 55 minutes earlier , in which two Japanese baggage workers were killed and four others injured, is considered certain. In this case, the explosive device was in a suitcase that arrived from Vancouver and was to be reloaded in Tokyo on Air India flight 301 to Bangkok . Some evidence, as well as the fact that no terrorist organization committed itself to the two attacks, indicated that the simultaneous demolition of two Air India planes on the ground in London and Tokyo could have been the terrorists' actual target. However, on June 22, 1985, the Boeing 747's departure from Canada was delayed. Without the delay, the explosive device would have exploded about 45 minutes after landing at London Heathrow.

Plane and crew

The Boeing 747-237B ( c / n : 21473/330) with the name Emperor Kanishka and the registration number VT-EFO was delivered brand new to Air India on June 30, 1978 and has been continuously operated by it since then.

The flight captain responsible on board Air India Flight 182 was Satinder Singh Bhinder. At the time of the explosion, the aircraft was being flown by First Officer Hanse Singh Narendra, while Captain Bhinder was in charge of radio communications as pilot not flying . The flight engineer Dara Dumasia was the third crew member in the cockpit.

Flight history

The plane coming from India had made the outward flight to Aéroport international Montréal-Mirabel under flight number AI181 with scheduled stopovers in Frankfurt and Toronto , with a delay in Toronto. The departure there was delayed by almost one and three quarters of an hour due to the installation of an additional, defective engine ( fifth pod ), which was to be transferred to an external load station under the left wing for repair. The Boeing 747 took off at 00:16  UTC , instead of 22:35 UTC as planned, in Toronto for the leg to Montréal. There the departure was delayed by a further quarter of an hour, so that the total delay was now 1 hour and 58 minutes. At 02:18 UTC, the machine took off from Montréal-Mirabel with the changed flight number AI182 for the return flight to Bombay , with scheduled stopovers at London Heathrow and New Delhi . There were 329 people, 307 passengers and 22 crew members on board . The arrival of the delayed scheduled flight in London was scheduled for 8:33 UTC.

At 07:08 UTC, the crew first contacted air traffic control in Shannon (Ireland) and at 07:10 UTC they received instructions to set the transponder code to 2005. Shortly after the aircraft entered the Irish air surveillance area at an altitude of 31,000 feet (9,500 meters) , the explosive device exploded in the forward underfloor hold at 07:14:01 UTC . The Boeing 747 broke in midair and crashed about 190 km southwest of the Irish town of Portmagee in the Atlantic , killing all 329 occupants. At the same time, the lost air traffic control at Shannon International Airport the radar contact to the machine. Because they had not picked up a distress call before, air traffic control asked other planes in the area to contact the missing Air India plane , but this failed.

To 07:30:00 UTC air traffic control told the air plight and ships located and the warship asked located near LÉ Aisling the Irish Navy to search for the plane. The cargo ship Laurentian Forest discovered floating debris and corpses at 09:13 UTC.

Investigations

Recovery of wreckage

In the first few days, 131 bodies as well as numerous floating debris and pieces of luggage were recovered. The British ship Gardline Locater equipped with sonar recorded the signals of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) on July 9, 1985 in a water depth of more than 2300 meters . Both devices were lifted using the Scarab 1 diving robot , which was released and controlled by the French cable layman Léon Thévenin , and then sent to India. Their evaluation on July 16 in Bombay showed that the power supply to both recorders failed simultaneously at 07:14:01 UTC. A loud noise was heard about half a second before the end of the CVR recording, indicating an explosion on board and / or explosive decompression .

The severely damaged front fuselage area was located about eight and a half kilometers away from the rest of the airframe, which corroborated the theory of a breakup in flight. The condition and position of the wreckage on the sea floor were recorded and documented with cameras. The salvage work continued until the end of September 1985 and mainly small pieces of debris were lifted. Underneath were several metal sheets and passenger seats from the front fuselage section, some of which had punctual holes and craters. In addition, the forward cargo hatch was torn from its anchorage and damaged during the flight. Investigators came to the conclusion that an explosion in the forward underfloor cargo hold had caused the machine to crash, breaking it in half behind the wing root.

Explosive device

In the meantime, Japanese forensic technicians had identified a fragment found at the crime scene in Tokyo-Narita as a fragment of a radio or tuner of the type Sanyo FMT 611K , in which the terrorists had presumably placed the explosive device in the suitcase. The radio was part of a series of 2,000 units that had been delivered to Vancouver in 1979. Canadian police investigations in local stores revealed that three weeks before the attacks , a Woolworth employee had sold two of these obsolete devices at the same time to two men whom they described as Sikhs by appearance . Canadian investigators concluded that the second radio was likely needed for the explosive device that crashed Air India Flight 182. Thus, for the first time, it was possible to establish a connection between the two stops. In the following two years, Japanese technicians were able to gain further knowledge about the explosive device. As time fuse serving a digital car clock manufacturer Micronta with alarm function, which was powered by a 12 volt battery. In addition, a bottle of flammable liquid, black powder and a detonator had been used to detonate the actual charge, which consisted of dynamite .

Bookings in the name of Singh

When comparing the passenger lists , it was found that a passenger named L. Singh had checked in his luggage for the CP Air flight 003 from Vancouver to Tokyo with the Air India connection there to Bangkok, but his seat 38H, according to statements from the cabin crew and others People on the long-haul flight to Tokyo was unoccupied. A second booking in the name of M. Singh had been made for CP Air flight 060 from Vancouver to Toronto, and this passenger was also on the waiting list for Air India flight 181/182 from Toronto to New Delhi. M. Singh had also checked in his suitcase in Vancouver but, according to witnesses, did not take the feeder flight to Toronto.

The tickets of these two men had been reserved by telephone on June 19, 1985 by an A. Singh and were initially issued under the names Mohinderbel Singh (Vancouver-Tokyo-Bangkok) and Jaswand Singh (Vancouver-Montreal-Delhi). On the same day the caller demanded the reservation for Mohinderbel Singh in the name of L. Singh and the change for Jaswand Singh to M. Singh, where he in addition a rebooking for M. Singh on a CP Air -Zubringerflug to Toronto instead to Montreal wished. Because the Air India plane on the section from Toronto to Montreal was already overbooked, M. Singh could only be placed on the waiting list for Air India flight 181/2 for June 22nd , which the caller agreed to. A male person described as an Asian picked up the two tickets issued to L. and M. Singh one day later at a CP Air sales point in Vancouver and paid the price of around CAD 3,000 in cash.

On June 22nd, a man posing as Manjit Singh (M. Singh) and speaking with an Indian accent called at 6:30 a.m. local time (13:30 GMT) at the CP Air reservation center to see if there was now a seat the Air-India flight would be available 181/2. The clerk informed him that he was still on the waiting list. The caller declined offers to rebook. M. Singh was also informed that he would only be able to check in his baggage in Vancouver if Air India had confirmed a seat for the long-haul flight from Toronto to Delhi.

Security vulnerabilities at Canadian airports

Shortly thereafter, M. Singh tried to check in his suitcase at a CP Air counter at Vancouver Airport and was initially turned away by the employee on duty, Jeanne Bakermans, with the information that he was still only on the waiting list for the flight to India. The man then pretended that he had just received a telephone confirmation from Air India . Because a long queue had formed in front of the counter and M. Singh continued to insist on accepting his luggage, the clerk took the suitcase and checked it on the CP-Air flight 060 to Toronto , in violation of the regulations, with forwarding to the Air India flight 181/2 enters Delhi.

Because of a worldwide terror warning for Indian institutions and organizations, stricter security regulations were in effect for all Air India flights from the beginning of June 1985, which also included an X-ray check of the transit baggage before it was loaded onto their aircraft. At Toronto-Pearson Airport , Air India commissioned the Canadian security company Burns International Security Services to carry out this task, using a stationary X-ray scanner in Terminal 2. This scanner failed on June 22 at around 5:00 p.m. local time (9:00 p.m. UTC) due to a defect after about 50 to 70 percent of the baggage for Air India flight 181/2 had been checked. The airline was not informed of this because the Air India station manager responsible was on vacation and had not appointed a representative.

The local head of the private security service then distributed handheld devices of the PD4 Sniffer type to his employees. These devices, equipped with sniffer probes , respond with an acoustic signal to explosive particles in the air. As a demonstration, the security manager set off a corresponding alarm tone. However, he neglected to tell the staff that the accuracy of the devices could be improved significantly by applying pressure to the luggage and allowing air to escape. While checking the remaining pieces of baggage intended for Air India flight 181/2, one of the devices emitted a short signal tone, which was different from the acoustic alarm during the demonstration. The security forces therefore assumed a false alarm and did not subject the case in question to any further investigation. It could not be clarified whether this was M. Singh's transit luggage checked in in Vancouver.

Victim

nationality Passover
gers		 crew overall
, including
CanadaCanada Canada 268 0 268
IndiaIndia India 2 22nd 24
United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 27 0 27
United StatesUnited States United States 10 0 10
Total 307 22nd 329

aftermath

Those accused in the later proceedings belonged to militant Sikh organizations such as Babbar Khalsa . To this day, the attack on the Air India plane is considered the largest mass murder in Canadian history. Of the 329 fatalities, 268 passengers were Canadian citizens; there were also 24 Indians (2 passengers and 22 crew members) on board the aircraft.

See also

literature

  • Clark Blaise , Bharati Mukherjee: The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy . Viking, Markham, Ontario / New York 1987, ISBN 0-670-81204-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Stanley Stewart: Air disasters that moved the world. : Bernard & Gräfe Verlag, Koblenz 1989, ISBN 3-7637-5859-3 .
  2. ↑ airfleets.net - Entry on the Boeing 747 with the registration number VT-EFO (English) accessed on February 25, 2011.
  3. ↑ Special Report: Air India Flight 182. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 7, 2009 ; accessed on March 28, 2018 (English).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h Investigation report of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board: Air India, Boeing 747-237B, VT-EFO, Cork, Ireland, 110 Miles West, 23 June 1985
  5. ↑ Bartleman proves there is no statute of limitations on integrity. In: The Globe and Mail. May 12, 2007, accessed June 23, 2016.
  6. ↑ a b Aviation Safety Network, VT-EFO, accident summary. Aviation Safety Network, accessed April 7, 2016 .
  7. ↑ CVR transcript Air India Flight 182 - 23 JUN 1985. Aviation Safety Network, accessed on May 23, 2010 (English).
  8. ^ D. Gero: Aviation catastrophes: Accidents with passenger aircraft since 1950. Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-613-01580-3 .
  9. ↑ Criminal Occurrence description Air-India Boeing 747-237B VT-EFO. Aviation Safety Network, June 23, 1985, accessed October 8, 2010 .
  10. ↑ Portrait of a bomber. ( Memento from July 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Vancouver Sun. September 9, 2007, accessed June 22, 2016.
  11. ^ Suspects in the Air India Bombing. In: ABC News. November 1, 2000, accessed June 22, 2016.
  12. ↑ Public Safety Canada, Lessons to be learned, The report of the Honorable Bob Rae, Independent Advisor to the Minister of Public Safety, on outstanding questions with respect to the bombing of Air India Flight 182
  13. ^ In Depth: Air India - The Victims. ( Memento of December 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: CBC News Online. March 16, 2005. (English)

Coordinates: 51 ° 4 ′  N , 12 ° 49 ′  W