Northwest Airlines Flight 253
| Northwest Airlines Flight 253 | |
|---|---|
_landing_at_Amsterdam_Airport_Schiphol_(1).jpg) A Northwest Airbus A330 in Delta livery, |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Attempted terrorist attack |
| place | Romulus , 25 miles west of Detroit |
| date | December 25, 2009 |
| Injured | 3 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Airbus A330-300 |
| operator | Northwest Airlines |
| Mark | N820NW |
| Surname | NW 253 |
| Departure airport | Amsterdam Airport Schiphol |
| Destination airport | Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport |
| Passengers | 278 |
| crew | 11 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On December 25, 2009, shortly before landing, an Islamist terrorist attack was attempted on Northwest Airlines flight 253 (NW 253), a scheduled flight operated by Northwest Airlines from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport . The Airbus A330-300 aircraft left Amsterdam at 8:45 a.m. CET and landed in Detroit around noon (EST).
incident
Around 20 minutes before landing in Detroit, the 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab set fire to a “powdery substance”, according to investigative authorities, on 80 g of nitropenta that he had previously hidden in his underpants . He was overwhelmed by other passengers. He testified that he received the substance in Yemen to blow up the plane with 278 passengers and 11 crew members.
Failure of the secret services
Abdulmutallab's father Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a respected banker and former Nigerian Minister for Economic Development, was so concerned about his son's increasing radicalism that he warned the US embassy in Abuja and Nigerian security officials in mid-2009. In addition, the name of the assassin was found in US intelligence reports because of possible links to al-Qaida and Yemen. US President Obama sharply reprimanded the secret services, saying that enough information was known to uncover the attack plans in advance. Had this information been merged, Abdulmutallab should never have been left on board.
Consequences
As a reaction to the events on board the aircraft, the security controls in international air traffic were tightened and the use of body scanners , although the explosives would not have been detected by the scanner, was again discussed more intensely in politics and the public. In addition, leading US politicians questioned the closure of the Guantanamo prison camp, which the incumbent President Barack Obama had promised during the election campaign and which is planned for 2010 . Two former Saudi Guantanamo prisoners, who are said to have joined al-Qaida after their release, were involved in the preparation of the attack .
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Northwest Flight 253 Terrorism Plot , image description from Associated Press . Retrieved December 27, 2009
- ↑ Well-known explosives - Nigerians could have been caught early Handelsblatt.de, December 28, 2009
- ^ Delta Air Lines Issues Statement on Northwest Flight 253 , Delta Air Lines press release dated December 25, 2009
- ↑ Investigators: Northwest Bomb Plot Planned by al Qaeda in Yemen , ABC News, December 26, 2009.
- ↑ Politics. (No longer available online.) In: www.suddeutsche.de. Archived from the original on May 7, 2010 ; accessed on April 23, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Summary of the White House Review of the December 25, 2009 Attempted Terrorist Attack (PDF; 416 kB) Spiegel Media, January 7, 2010 (English)
- ↑ Attack on US passenger plane: Obama reprimands his secret services. In: Zeit Online. January 6, 2010, accessed January 7, 2010 .
- ↑ Stefanie Bolzen: Terrorism: Attempted attack sparked security debate , in Die Welt , on December 27, 2009
- ↑ Experts doubt the benefit of the naked scanner , spiegel.de, January 8, 2010
- ↑ Guantánamo's closure at risk - terror of inmates 333 and 372 , taz.de , December 30, 2009
