Passengers & Crew Subdue Bomber!!!!
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Passengers & Crew Subdue Bomber!!!!
In what is likely to be the start of some crazy times, there has been an attempted bombing by a suicide bomber of an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. I have always considered concealed objects, such as those held in the palm of your hand or in your shoe to be hard to identify through metal detectors. It shows that security processes in the world, cannot stop everything. People willing to do harm, will always find a way...All I can say is thankfully this flight attendant was quick to respond and with the help of passengers averted possibly a major disaster.
It was reported on the news today that the amount of C4 contained in the shoe would have been enough to cause a massive depressurisation or possible hull loss.
This news report from the Allied Press below...
Passengers and crew foil suicide bomber
Boston: A passenger on a jetliner bound from Paris to Miami tried to ignite an "improvised explosive" in his shoe, but the crew and fellow passengers subdued him, authorities said.
The plane, escorted by military jets, landed safely in Boston.
The suspect, identified as Richard Reid, was taken into custody by the FBI. Officials said he was travelling on a British passport.
"I'm told the flight attendant was drawn to him by the smell of sulphur from a lit match, and then challenged him as to what he was doing," said Thomas Kinton, interim executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport.
A flight attendant intervened after the man tried to light his shoe on fire, and the 1.93-metre Reid resisted and bit her, Massport spokeswoman Laura White said.
Passengers subdued him, belting him into his seat. Two doctors used the airplane's onboard medical kit to sedate him, and the man's shoe, which had protruding wires, was removed.
Two F-15 fighter jets escorted the plane, American Airlines Flight 63, to Logan, where it landed at 12.50pm (0350 Sunday AEDT) with police, fire and bomb squads standing by.
The 185 passengers and 12 crew members were taken off safely.
"They X-rayed the shoe and found that in the heel, there were holes drilled, and there looked to be a detonator wire, and the substances consistent with (the explosive) C-4," White said.
The shoe was taken from the plane, rendered harmless and taken to an FBI laboratory for analysis, White said
White said Reid's passport, issued in Belgium three weeks ago, was "questionable". He boarded the plane without luggage or additional identification.
Reid was being interrogated at the airport by the FBI. The other passengers were also being questioned, White said.
In London, a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office said: "We are aware that a UK citizen has been detained in the United States.
"The details are a matter for the US authorities," she added, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
"We are seeking normal consular access as we would with any UK citizen."
The intervention on the flight "appeared to have prevented something very serious from occurring," Kinton said.
The FBI's Kim McAllister confirmed that one man was being held in FBI custody for "interference with a flight crew," but had not been arrested.
The other passengers on the flight were held for questioning at an airport concourse.
They were separated from public areas of the airport by a metal gate.
Kinton immediately instituted a policy of random checking of passenger's shoes, White said.
Composition C-4 is a military plastic explosive. Its main ingredient is RDX, which is also used in fireworks.
The whitish, putty-like substance can be easily moulded by hand. It can be detonated if burned.
The explosive was used in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. The bombing of the American destroyer killed 17 US sailors and wounded 39.
Reuters reported US President George W Bush had been briefed on the incident.
"The White House has been monitoring the situation since early on today," it quoted White House spokesman Scott McClellan as saying.
AP
It was reported on the news today that the amount of C4 contained in the shoe would have been enough to cause a massive depressurisation or possible hull loss.
This news report from the Allied Press below...
Passengers and crew foil suicide bomber
Boston: A passenger on a jetliner bound from Paris to Miami tried to ignite an "improvised explosive" in his shoe, but the crew and fellow passengers subdued him, authorities said.
The plane, escorted by military jets, landed safely in Boston.
The suspect, identified as Richard Reid, was taken into custody by the FBI. Officials said he was travelling on a British passport.
"I'm told the flight attendant was drawn to him by the smell of sulphur from a lit match, and then challenged him as to what he was doing," said Thomas Kinton, interim executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport.
A flight attendant intervened after the man tried to light his shoe on fire, and the 1.93-metre Reid resisted and bit her, Massport spokeswoman Laura White said.
Passengers subdued him, belting him into his seat. Two doctors used the airplane's onboard medical kit to sedate him, and the man's shoe, which had protruding wires, was removed.
Two F-15 fighter jets escorted the plane, American Airlines Flight 63, to Logan, where it landed at 12.50pm (0350 Sunday AEDT) with police, fire and bomb squads standing by.
The 185 passengers and 12 crew members were taken off safely.
"They X-rayed the shoe and found that in the heel, there were holes drilled, and there looked to be a detonator wire, and the substances consistent with (the explosive) C-4," White said.
The shoe was taken from the plane, rendered harmless and taken to an FBI laboratory for analysis, White said
White said Reid's passport, issued in Belgium three weeks ago, was "questionable". He boarded the plane without luggage or additional identification.
Reid was being interrogated at the airport by the FBI. The other passengers were also being questioned, White said.
In London, a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office said: "We are aware that a UK citizen has been detained in the United States.
"The details are a matter for the US authorities," she added, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
"We are seeking normal consular access as we would with any UK citizen."
The intervention on the flight "appeared to have prevented something very serious from occurring," Kinton said.
The FBI's Kim McAllister confirmed that one man was being held in FBI custody for "interference with a flight crew," but had not been arrested.
The other passengers on the flight were held for questioning at an airport concourse.
They were separated from public areas of the airport by a metal gate.
Kinton immediately instituted a policy of random checking of passenger's shoes, White said.
Composition C-4 is a military plastic explosive. Its main ingredient is RDX, which is also used in fireworks.
The whitish, putty-like substance can be easily moulded by hand. It can be detonated if burned.
The explosive was used in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. The bombing of the American destroyer killed 17 US sailors and wounded 39.
Reuters reported US President George W Bush had been briefed on the incident.
"The White House has been monitoring the situation since early on today," it quoted White House spokesman Scott McClellan as saying.
AP
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All bin laden is doing is turning the rest of the world against all that is Islam and that is a tragedy.
Would I employ a Muslim? No! I do not want the spinoff of public disapproval.
Poor AA has become the 21st century Pan Am or TWA (who they just absorbed) and the whipping boy for idiots.
Maybe if the moron realised what damage he was doing to the 90% of followers of Islam he would think again. I doubt it though.
90% may be a little high as there were street parties in Sydney and Brisbane celebrating SEP 11.
There may indeed be a place in the world for genocide.
I am sure we are all over this rubbish.
EWL.
Would I employ a Muslim? No! I do not want the spinoff of public disapproval.
Poor AA has become the 21st century Pan Am or TWA (who they just absorbed) and the whipping boy for idiots.
Maybe if the moron realised what damage he was doing to the 90% of followers of Islam he would think again. I doubt it though.
90% may be a little high as there were street parties in Sydney and Brisbane celebrating SEP 11.
There may indeed be a place in the world for genocide.
I am sure we are all over this rubbish.
EWL.
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Simply put, the whole world is unlikely to ever live in total harmony so therefore one power must be superior militarily. The choice is simple: the US may have its own skeletons in the closet but they, like us, value human life and the forces involved in terrorism do not. I sure know who I want to be in control.
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Good call longhauler - the only way we will ever achieve the secure world we were used to is make all of the ilk of the perpetrators of the SEP 11 atrocity and other incursions a memory. It is unfortunate but the only way. I do not believe we will see it in our lifetime so things will stay ugly. The rub is that so many nice innocent human beings are being tarred with the same brush.
Religion in all forms has so much to answer for.
EWL
Religion in all forms has so much to answer for.
EWL
Also think in this case they were lucky he wasn't the sharpest terrorist in the shed.
Got ta ask the question though - Wouldn't someone checking in for a longhaul international sector like that with no baggage raise a few suspicions? Especially in this climate?
Got ta ask the question though - Wouldn't someone checking in for a longhaul international sector like that with no baggage raise a few suspicions? Especially in this climate?
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He did raise some eyebrows the first time he tried to check-in with no bags, and was sent away by the check-in staff member. He returned the next day, still with no bags, but with a new identity carrying a UK passport. He slipped through that time.
My concern with having one military body or country in charge of policing the world is they often write their own laws.
The US would like to hold all people captured in a military court, because it gives the prosecuters greater legal power, and less rights to the accused under US military law than civilian law. However, if another country wants to hold a US citizen in a military court, the US is the first to jump up and down protesting it.
This is an aviation forum and out of respect to Woomera and the new "ten thingies", I am not going to rave on about politics and other things...
I just hope that in the long run, people stop taking life for granted!
Merry Christmas to all!
[ 23 December 2001: Message edited by: Spatial Disorientation ]</p>
My concern with having one military body or country in charge of policing the world is they often write their own laws.
The US would like to hold all people captured in a military court, because it gives the prosecuters greater legal power, and less rights to the accused under US military law than civilian law. However, if another country wants to hold a US citizen in a military court, the US is the first to jump up and down protesting it.
This is an aviation forum and out of respect to Woomera and the new "ten thingies", I am not going to rave on about politics and other things...
I just hope that in the long run, people stop taking life for granted!
Merry Christmas to all!
[ 23 December 2001: Message edited by: Spatial Disorientation ]</p>
On another point people travelling on one way tickets are also looked at upon very strangely. I know some people in the US and she was telling us that travelling from Memphis to San Francisco she was searched at the airport in a backroom, asked why she was picked, it's because your travelling on a one way ticket ma'am, she must have looked very scary and looking like a typical terriost....for a 78 year old woman!
On the other end of the spectrum, I walked into BN airport's security checkpoint, strolled thru and set off the metal detector, waved the hand thing on me and nothing, I then realised I had my steel capped boots on, told the guy, he said no worries and let me walk thru, the fact that my boots were steel capped wasn't checked, and the point that I could have had anything else stuffed in my shoes wasn't even though of, in the current climate I was expected i'd be asked to remove them and have them x-rayed...especially after this last guy on foot related items, makes you wonder!
On the other end of the spectrum, I walked into BN airport's security checkpoint, strolled thru and set off the metal detector, waved the hand thing on me and nothing, I then realised I had my steel capped boots on, told the guy, he said no worries and let me walk thru, the fact that my boots were steel capped wasn't checked, and the point that I could have had anything else stuffed in my shoes wasn't even though of, in the current climate I was expected i'd be asked to remove them and have them x-rayed...especially after this last guy on foot related items, makes you wonder!
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I think there is much merit in the concept of bringing all airport security back into the government fold. At least then there can be enforceable standards and the excellent resources of our military people can be used with no major price tag. Of course this would require not only an 'initiative' by the government but also dedication, stamina and the ability to follow through - these are the qualities which a rarely exhibited by a government.
