Civil Aviation and the Aircraft Bomb - Flight Safety Foundation

F L I G HT SAFE TY FOUN D A TI O N • F L I G H T S A F E T Y D I G E S T • OCTOBER 1990 1

During the last two decades, civil aviation hasbecome a favored target of terrorist organiza-tions. The reasons for this ominous interestare obvious. Internationally oriented, offer-ing ever-growing distances and faster trans-portation, civil aviation has shown a spectaculargrowth since the fifties, the number of its pas-sengers having increased by the millions.

Airline companies present themselves, or areintroduced, as examples of national prestigeand efficiency. Therefore, many countries, what-ever their economic situation and whateverthe cost, attempt to establish their own na-tional airlines. The aviation companies, whetheror not subsidized by their governments, arethe pride of their respective countries; theirsymbolic value as such should not be under-estimated. Civil aviation, with more than amillion flights a year, has become the mostfrequently used means of international publictransport, long since having left train and shipfar behind.

This combination of speed, international rangeand prestige, enormous distances and nation-alist symbolism attracted, some 20 years ago,the attention of violent groups which realizedthat these aspects might serve their struggle.The isolation of an aircraft in midair, the highvisibility of company offices and counters, andthe locality of airports were recognized as of-fering tactically easy targets, of great value tothose who in a violent way wanted to drawinternational attention to their political idealsand demands. Isolation of an aircraft in mid-

Civil Aviation and the Aircraft Bomb

Sophisticated incendiary devices have become terrorists’favored means of gaining their sinister objectives.

byC.J.Visser

Netherlands Institute of International Relations

air seemed to guarantee a favorable situationfor hijacking during which passengers and crewcould be easily forced into subserviency andobedience, thus rendering hostage-taking apotentially successful activity.

Hijacking alone could be presented as an actof bravery, to be implemented by way of pun-ishment of or warning to the aviation com-pany involved or the state which it represented.The combination of hijacking and hostage-takingcould provide unmistakable pressure for de-mands concerning release of prisoners, ran-som or otherwise, and great publicity if theywere conducive to protracted negotiations andthe presence of the media.

After the discovery of the vulnerability of air-craft to terrorist attacks, hijackings and hos-tage-takings spectacularly increased in num-ber. From 1945 till 1968, the year in which thePopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP) of Dr. George Habash hijacked an Is-raeli aircraft for the first time, hijackings num-bered less than a hundred, none of them re-lated to terrorist activities or motives. After1968, however, the number of hijackings in-creased with more than 600 occurring sincethen.

Despite attempts to stop this wave of violencethrough international law and all sorts of se-curity measures, the prevention of hijacking isstill flawed. Luggage control, the checking ofpassengers, the use of metal detectors and thethreat of boycotting airports in countries that

F L I G H T SAFE TY FOUN D A TI O N • F L I G H T S A F E T Y D I G E S T • OCTOBER 19902

follow a sloppy interpretation of these mea-sures, have indeed diminished the danger thatarmed commandos may enter aircraft unde-tected. But these security measures have onlybeen implemented at a certain number of air-ports; at other facilities the danger is still veryreal due to the lack of organization, moneyand qualified personnel. This was evidentwhen, in April 1988, an aircraft of Kuwait Air-lines, on its way from Bangkok to Kuwait, washijacked and the passengers and crew takenhostage.

Therefore, the question remains whether thedecrease in number of hijackings after 1986 isdue to worldwide security efforts, or if it hassomething to do with the changing prioritiesand the activities of terrorist groups. Theseonce gained their reputation in the hijack busi-ness, but later either faded away or resortedto other terrorist techniques.

There is another reason — there were also set-backs for the criminals. In recent years, anumber of hijackings resulted in disaster forthe terrorists. Late in 1985, the hijacking of anEgyptian airliner ended in a shoot-out betweenhijackers and Egyptian commando troops, leav-ing 50 people dead. The hijacking of a PanAm flight on Karachi’s airport in September1986 ended in a somewhat similar drama, duringwhich 18 people lost their lives. Another spec-tacular hijack occurred in April 1988, and itwas not a terrorist success either. Althoughthe hijackers threatened to take suicidal ac-tion by blowing up the plane with everybodyaboard if their demands were not met, theyfinally settled for a quiet exit; plane, crew andpassengers remained unharmed.

Whatever the reason, terrorist enthusiasm forhijacking has diminished during the last threeyears. On the other hand, however, duringthis same period civil aviation has been threat-ened by a far more sinister and lethal terroristmethod.

Bombs.

Air India 1985

In June 1985 an Air India flight crashed intothe Atlantic Ocean near Ireland with 329 peopleon board, minutes after having establishednormal radio contact with Heathrow Airport,London, U.K., where it was about to land for afuel stop, before flying to New Delhi and Bombay,India. No one survived the disaster. The wreck-age was spread over many square kilometersof open sea, the plane was broken into twopieces and since it had not signalled a May-day for help, the Indian minister of transportwas led to believe that sabotage had causedthe crash. [A bombing was subsequently con-firmed. — Ed.]

The plane had begun its flight in Toronto, Canada,and had picked up other passengers at Montrealbefore it took off for London. According tothe first secretary of the India High Commis-sion, Air India had received bomb threats dur-ing the weeks before the catastrophe. TheCanadian authorities had therefore been in-formed, and that was why the police at Montrealairport had seized three suspicious suitcasesin the aircraft’s cargo, but none of these con-tained explosives.

The suspicion that a bomb had caused the crashgrew when at the Tokyo airport, almost at thevery moment the disaster happened, anotherexplosive went off, which was hidden in lug-gage about to be transferred from a CanadianPacific plane to an airliner of Air India; theblast killed two people. Several groups hadalready claimed responsibility; the Federationof Shik students in the United States and theKashmir Liberation Army.

It was important to know where and by whomthe two bombs had been smuggled aboard. Inthe case of the destroyed aircraft the crimewas perpetrated either in Toronto or in Montreal;in the case of the Canadian Pacific airlinerthere was a choice between Toronto andVancouver. A passenger told reporters that ithad been possible to check in uninspected lug-gage for the local flight from Toronto toVancouver, from where it could have been trans-ferred, without further control, to an interna-tional flight.

In any case, it was clear that the bomb smug-


glers had used a Canadian airport for theiractivities, probably Toronto, where the elec-tronic luggage control facilities had been outof order for some time.

“Why fight India in the skies over Ireland —or in a Tokyo airport terminal? There was noexplanation. As appalling as their tactics havebeen, at least the Beirut hijackers showed them-selves and voiced specific demands,” Newsweekcommented on July 8, but this comparison be-tween bombers and hijackers was beside thepoint. Hijacking and hostage-taking are actsof violence with a conditional character; theyprovide means for establishing negotiationsand may end peacefully, either by the terror-ists if their demands are sufficiently met, orby their opponents if they are able to takeeffective countermeasures. An explosive de-vice, on the other hand, is unconditional andtherefore, unless threats are made for a sec-ond attack, is not useful as a means of coer-cion. A bombing’s irreversible character indi-cates that those who perpetrate this crime arenot in the least interested in contacts with theirenemy; their aim is simply to hit, to humiliateand to terrorize — not to negotiate.

Because of the use of explosive devices, newproblems for aviation security have arisen. Withregard to hijacking and hostage-taking, com-mon sense has demanded the checking of allboarding passengers and their luggage. Butcommon sense now seemed to demand, firstof all, the checking of the identity and luggageof passengers who either did not show up orleft the plane without their luggage well be-fore its final destination.

TWA 1986

This logic however, as another event was toindicate, was not always satisfactory. On April2, 1986, a bomb exploded during a TWA flightfrom Rome to Athens with 124 people on board;the explosion cut a hole in the fuselage andfour people were sucked out of the plane andperished.

Due to the low altitude, about 10,000 feet wherethe aircraft was barely pressurized, there was

only limited damage, and the captain succeededin landing the aircraft safely. If the device hadexploded at 30,000 feet when the aircraft wasfully pressurized, which apparently had beenthe aim of the terrorists, the plane would havetotally disintegrated in which case no one wouldhave survived the crash.

Suspicions about the airport where the bombhad been smuggled aboard primarily pointedto Rome, Italy, where the aircraft had begunits flight with 104 passengers who boardedfrom another flight that had arrived in Romefrom New York, and 10 passengers who begantheir trip in Rome. But there were other possi-bilities. The plane usually made the flightfrom Cairo to Athens to Rome and back again,so it departed and landed repeatedly at threeairports which in those days had an unsatis-factory reputation in terms of security.

The hole in the fuselage indicated that thedevice had been hidden in a piece of handluggage, probably some bag, which had beenput in the immediate vicinity of the victims: aGreek grandmother, her daughter and grand-daughter and an American of Columbian ori-gin. Responsibility for their deaths was claimedthe following day by the Arab Revolutionarycells of Al Kassam but this claim did not earnmuch credibility. In Italy, the media suggestedthat Abu Nidal’s al-Fatah Revolutionary Councilwas responsible; Israel’s Minister of ForeignAffairs Shimon Peres saw behind the attack ajoint venture of Abu Nidal’s and Abu Musa’speople, and the U.S. government held the 15thof May group of Abu Ibrahim responsible forthe attack which, it said, was carried out withLibyan help.

Two days after the bombing, the Italian intel-ligence service said it was sure that the bombhad been put under seat 10F by a female ter-rorist, by the name of Monsour or Mansour,who boarded the plane in Cairo and disap-peared in Athens. This would have meantthat Cairo was to blame for inadequate secu-rity, but it also implied that a piece of handluggage, left without its owner in Athens, wassubsequently not discovered by Greek, Italianand TWA security services.


It remained unclear which type of explosivehad been used. American experts thought itto have been Deta-sheet, a substance not un-like tar paper which could easily be moldedinto bag lining. But even without such so-phisticated camouflage it was rather difficultto trace explosives at airports because secu-rity checks were usually carried out with thehelp of metal detectors in order to preventhijacking; metal detectors, however, are un-able to trace explosives and detonators.

The search for what really had happened wenton, but without satisfactory results. It wasgenerally assumed that on March 25 a Leba-nese woman, using the name May Elias Mansour,flew from Beirut to Cairo in a Middle EastAirline (MEA) aircraft. On April 2, she wentto the TWA desk at Cairo airport to have herreturn flight changed into a flight from Ath-ens to Beirut, but the desk employee told herthat TWA no longer accepted MEA tickets. Soshe bought a new TWA ticket to Athens, sub-sequently passed the security check and satdown at seat 10F. She left the plane, leaving abomb behind, in Athens where she had to waitsix hours before she could board an MEA flightback to Beirut.

But the woman, whose name actually was MayElias Mansour, organized a press conferencein Tripoli, Lebanon, during which she heat-edly denied the charge. She admitted that shewas a member of the National Syrian SocialParty, that she objected to U.S. policies in theMiddle East, but that she had never been in-volved in terrorist activities.

Italian security personnel, however, persistedin pointing to her odd travel pattern, her sud-den decision to go to Athens with TWA whichcost her an extra ticket while it had been pos-sible to fly from Cairo directly back to Beiruton her MEA ticket. Moreover, at Athens air-port she had thrown away this MEA ticket,although a Greek airport official advised herto try and get back the money she had paid forit.

But there were other aspects that rendered herless suspicious. She had used her real namewhich is a rather uncommon habit in terrorist

circles. She had attracted unnecessary atten-tion trying to change her MEA ticket for aTWA one, and she had waited six hours in thetransit hall of Athens airport; in fact, she wasstill waiting there after the landing of the bombedTWA aircraft, thus breaking almost every rulein the terrorist book. Equally odd was thetime of the explosion, namely while the planewas on its way back from Rome after havingbeen put in order and checked there, whichmeant that she had taken a risk she couldhave avoided by having the bomb detonatewhile the plane was on its way to Rome.

EL AL 1986

The TWA explosion was one of the many ter-rorist attacks that infuriated the U.S. govern-ment and led to its decision to punish Libyanleader Ghadafi, as the likely instigator of theseterrorist actions. The American air raid onTripoli and Benghazi abruptly ended specula-tions in the media about culprits and motives;the Lebanese woman remained the only sus-pect.

But one day after the air raid, on April 17,1986, Israeli security agents at Heathrow air-port prevented a bomb from being smuggledaboard an aircraft, thus discovering what couldbe considered further proof of the terroristarsenal of inventiveness and possibilities. Theystopped a female passenger on her way to anEl Al aircraft that was ready to depart for TelAviv with 375 people on board. The woman’sbag, they found, contained about three poundsof Semtex, an explosive made in Czechoslova-kia, and a detonator hidden in a portable cal-culator. Its mechanism was set for the bombto explode while the plane would cross theAlps, with horrific consequences.

Soon it became clear that the woman had nothingto do with the explosive contents of her hand-bag. She was about to travel to Israel whereshe would marry her fiancé, who at the lastmoment had decided to take another plane.He had taken her and her luggage to the air-port, where he had promised to join her in thePromised Land as soon as possible. The woman’sstory was accepted, not in the least because


her six months pregnancy did not suggest asuicidal act.

Attention was then focused on the fiancé, whothree days later gave himself up to the police.He confessed that his name was Nezar NawafMansur Hindawi, and that as a Palestinian hehad Jordanian nationality. In London, he hadworked for an Arab newspaper until the Syr-ian secret service had talked him into perpe-trating a terrorist act against some Israeli air-craft, and into sacrificing his fiancé and theirunborn child in the process.

Hindawi got a 45-year prison sentence, althoughhe recanted his confession during the trial.His macabre plot was both simple and bril-liant. It completely destroyed the assumptionthat bomb attacks against aircraft were alwaysperpetrated by persons who were not amongits passengers. The Hindawi affair made clearthat the person who smuggled a bomb aboardcould very well be one of its innocent victims.

That discovery was not entirely new. In 1972,some Palestinians had convinced two Britishtourists, on their way from Rome to Tel Aviv,to carry a record player to Israel on their be-half. The tourists, who had nothing to hide,told about their act of kindness to securitypersonnel after the bomb prematurely exploded.

This risk of early discovery was avoided bythe method of Hindawi, whose fiancé couldonly testify that she was in fact the owner ofthe bag she carried. And she could also replyaffirmatively to the question if she had packedher bag all by herself; she knew nothing aboutits double layer.

Hindawi’s risk of being exposed only becameacute in case of failure. While the Palestinianmusic-lovers could vanish into the crowd, theidentity of Hindawi was known by his be-trayed fiancee who did not hesitate to cooper-ate with the police. If however, the attack hadsucceeded and the plane was destroyed, prob-ably no one would have taken much interestin the background of a pregnant passenger,among so many other dead bodies. The ques-tion could be raised whether, perhaps in thecase of the TWA flight, a similar use had been

made of an innocent passenger who unknow-ingly carried the bomb aboard in his or herhand luggage.

It was clear by now that defense against thosewho would bomb aircraft was rather weak,which was an important reason why duringthe last few years some terrorist groups havededicated their skills to this particular method.Even the risk of being arrested after a success-ful bomb attack usually seemed small due tothe difficulty of finding evidence in a wreckedand burned-out plane. Unfortunately, theseand other favorable aspects have also temptedstate authorities to use this means against theirenemies, either by supporting such attacks asSyria did in the Hindawi case, or by preparingand executing a bomb attack themselves.

Korean Air Lines 1987

On November 29, 1987, KAL Flight 858, on itsway from Baghdad via Abu Dhabi and Bangkokto Seoul, suddenly crashed into the AdamanSea near the Burmese coast, with 115 peopleon board. Bad weather or mechanical failurecould not have caused the disaster since min-utes before the crash the pilot had announcedthat the plane was about to land at Bangkokairport without delay or problems.

The likely explanation was sabotage, and thissuspicion grew when information revealed thattwo Japanese passengers, father Sinichi anddaughter Mayumi Hachya, had suddenly leftthe KAL plane in Abu Dhabi and had taken aflight to Bahrain, at least one of them by usinga false passport. After being stopped the fol-lowing day at Bahrain airport for police ques-tioning, both had lighted cigarettes which con-tained cyanide capsules. The man succeededin committing suicide, but the woman lived asthe result of immediate medical treatment.Papers and names of the two passengers provedto be false, so the initial assumption was thateither they belonged to a Korean communityin Japan that sympathized with the North Ko-rean regime, or to the notorious Japanese RedArmy, a moribund terrorist organization thathad suddenly reemerged, threatening to dis-turb the Olympic Games in Seoul. Their sui-


cide attempt indicated North Korean involve-ment; it would not be the first time that terror-ist attacks, prepared in Pyongyang, ended withthe perpetrators committing suicide.

But the plot, as it was revealed by the womanwho was afterwards held in custody in Seoul,was even more bizarre. On December 23, shemade a full confession and told her South Ko-rean interrogators that her real name was KimHyon-hui and that she had been trained foreight years to become a North Korean secretagent. She received this peculiar eduction be-cause of her family’s impeccable communistbehavior, her attractiveness and her knowl-edge of the Japanese language.

From April 1980 until April 1981, she was trainedin political ideology, fighting techniques, shoot-ing, marching and other para-military skills.After that she spent two years living with aJapanese woman in order to improve her knowl-edge of the Japanese language and culture andsubsequently, until 1984, she followed a coursein espionage, military training, driving, pho-tography and communication techniques. InApril 1982, she had become a full member ofthe North Korean Workers Party.

In July 1984, she was ordered to team up withKim Sung-il, 45 years her senior, and form a“father-daughter” sabotage team. In Augustand September 1984, Kim Hyon-hui and her“father” received the false Japanese passportsthat would betray them three years later, andtraveled to some West European cities in or-der to “study the capitalist culture.” After-wards, Hyon-hui travelled alone to Macao andCanton, where she stayed for almost two yearslearning Chinese. During these eight years oftraining, her superiors must have been rathercontent with her performances, honoring herwith the Medal for Outstanding Services andthe Order of the National Flag third class, inAugust 1985 and in April 1987, respectively.

On October 7, 1987, she was told that finallythe moment had come to put her skills andtraining into practice. She and “father” KimSung-il, were to destroy a South Korean air-liner by using explosives, as an act of punish-ment for Seoul’s unwillingness to reunite the

Korean peninsula, and for its hosting of the1988 Olympic Games. This plot, as Kim Hyon-hui revealed, had been concocted by Kim Yong-il, the mentally unstable son of North Koreanleader Kim il Sung himself, to whom she sworean oath of loyalty and promised that she wouldfight relentlessly for the reputation and dig-nity of her beloved leader.

Then, on November 12, Kim Hyon-hui andKim Sung-il started their ominous journey flyingvia Moscow to Budapest, where they arrivedthe next day. They stayed in the Hungariancapital until November 18 and behaved likenormal tourists. From there, they were drivenby car to Vienna, where they picked up theirfalse Japanese passports and bought ticketsfor a November 28 Belgrade-Bagdhad-AbuDhabi-Bahrain flight, and for an Abu Dhabi-Rome flight on November 29.

On November 23, they went to Belgrade where,as in Vienna, they were the guests of the NorthKorean Embassy. On November 27, a day be-fore the sabotage action started, they were giventhe bomb, which was partly hidden in a por-table radio cassette and partly in a bottle filledwith a fluid explosive substance.

On November 28, they boarded the Iraqi planewhich was to fly them to Baghdad. Beforetaking off, however, they had to hand over theradio batteries for security reasons, so theytravelled without music and without the pos-sibility to activate the bomb. Only after thelanding in Baghdad were the batteries returnedto them. While they were waiting in the tran-sit hall, they were asked again to hand overthe batteries, but after complaining to the se-curity authorities about this nuisance, theymanaged to keep them and to set the timer,which was to activate the bomb nine hoursafter takeoff.

KAL Flight 858 flew them to Abu Dhabi where,after leaving the plane, a second problememerged. They were not allowed to leave theairport because they had no entrance visa, sothey were forced to fly to Bahrain where theyhad to change their Abu Dhabi-Rome ticketsto Bahrain-Rome ones, which also meant thatthey had to wait two days before they could


fly back to Rome. On December 1, they werefinally stopped as suspects at Bahrain airport,and cyanide seemed to offer the only way out.

It was not altogether clear why Kim Hyon-huihad decided to confess. She said she had doneso because she had been very favorably im-pressed by South Korean life, of which shehad been given such a very negative pictureby her homeland. But it was also possible thatshe pleaded guilty out of fear to be sent backto Pyongyang, where her superiors might haveliked to rectify her failed suicide attempt.

But this failure was only one of the many mis-takes she and her partner had made. In spiteof her extensive Japanese education, none ofher interrogators had been fooled by it. Herand her partner ’s false passports had beenused by them many times before, and there-fore should never have been used to serve asidentity papers during such a dangerous mis-sion.

They took another risk while boarding the Iraqiaircraft in Belgrade. The war with Iran andthe hijack attempt in December 1986 had alertedBaghdad in terms of aviation security, and ithad been sheer luck that no one discoveredthe explosive contents of their luggage; evenlater, while they were waiting in the transithall, the Iraqi authorities had almost frustratedtheir sabotage mission by asking again for thebatteries. Even their escape route proved tobe a mistake. No one seemed to have informedthem about the need for an entrance visa inAbu Dhabi, and this lack of information costthem two days, enough time for their pursu-ers to track them down.

The false Japanese passports would have beenuseful if their escape had been successful, inwhich case investigations would probably havestopped at the notion that two unidentifiedpassengers with false passports had left theplane in Abu Dhabi. But their arrest, and thesubsequent checking of their passports, codebooks and address books, along with photo-graphs and other material they carried, madeit rather easy to connect them to the NorthKorean regime.

The clumsiness with which their sabotage mis-sion had been prepared and executed made itpossible to identify the real culprits, but inspite of this clumsiness no one had been ableto prevent what had happened. Their lack ofsubversive craftmanship emphasized once morethe danger of aircraft bombs. When terroristdilettantism did not stop sabotage plotters fromdestroying an aircraft, then much more was tobe feared from professionals using the samemeans.

Lockerbie 1988

The threat of a professional bomb attack mate-rialized one year later. On December 21, 1988,a Pan Am Boeing 747 jumbo jet suddenly crashedonto the small Scottish town of Lockerbie, killingall 259 people on board and an additional 11on the ground; the disaster left the town ashambles. Suspicions about sabotage grewwhen the next day a shadowy pro-Iranian group,the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, claimedresponsibility and declared that the disasterwas an act of revenge for the downing of anIranian airliner by the U.S. navy five monthsearlier; this claim, however, was given littlecredibility.

The same day, it became publicly known thaton December 5 the U.S. Embassy in Helsinkihad received a tip about a possible bombingby the Abu Nidal group of a Pan Am airlineron its way from Frankfurt Airport to the UnitedStates. Although the Finnish police had dis-missed the tip as a hoax, the U.S. governmentacted upon it and advised its embassy person-nel to avoid Pan Am flights for the time being.When this advice became public, it created arow, as the bereaved families of the victimsaccused the U.S. government of keeping thiskind of information all for itself, while notwarning the public at large.

But there had been even more ominous signsthat something terrible was about to happen.On October 27, West German police raided 16houses in several cities, arrested 14 Palestin-ians and uncovered large caches of arms, am-munition and explosives which, according tothe police, were to be used in actions abroad.


All 14 Palestinians were members of the PopularFront for the Liberation of Palestine-GeneralCommand (PFLP-GC), the pro-Syrian and, since1983, anti-Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO) of Achmed Jibril.

Jibril was a former Syrian army captain and aproven expert in bomb attacks against civilaviation.

The German authorities did not explain whythey arrested the group at this particular mo-ment; some members had been staying in WestGermany for two years by then. They also didnot explain why, just a few days later, theyreleased 12 members of the group, and why,for the next two weeks, they kept silent on thediscovery of two specific bombs which theyfound hidden in radio cassettes and equippedwith altimeters, a clear sign that they wereintended to be used against aircraft in midair.The official comment that the authorities hadno clue as to what purpose the arms mightserve seemed strangely inaccurate where thesetwo bombs were concerned.

A few weeks later, a more general warning,given by Yasir Arafat’s Palestine LiberationOrganization (PLO), stated that either Israeliagents or Palestinian extremists were planningterrorist attacks designed to undermine thenew dialogue between the U.S. governmentand the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Warnings and arrests were unequivocal fore-bodings of disaster, but they did not inciteairport authorities to increase the amount andthe quality of precautionary security measures.According to passengers on Pan Am flights,security had continued to be rather lax andluggage even had been loaded and transportedwithout its owner.

In the week of Christmas 1988, experts mademajor efforts to establish the cause of the ca-lamity, scrutinizing the wreckage which wasspread over hundreds of square kilometers.Meanwhile, speculations ran high in the me-dia, offering Pan Am and Boeing company of-ficials some hope that it had been a bomb, inwhich case they could not be blamed for struc-tural failure, while airport officials favored

the cause to be structural failure, in whichcase they could not be blamed for securityfaults. Then, on December 28, the experts an-nounced they had found conclusive evidencethat a sophisticated plastic bomb, hidden inthe plane’s forward luggage, had destroyedthe aircraft. It is highly probable that the ter-rorists who planted it, were rather upset bythis discovery. They had intended all evi-dence to disappear, but because the plane hadbeen delayed for 25 minutes it had not crashedinto the Atlantic Ocean as planned, but aboveground from an altitude of 31,000 feet.

The evidence ended the speculative phase ofthe investigation and turned it into a criminalone. It became paramount to establish where,how and by whom the bomb had been planted.The plane had been on the London-to-Frank-furt leg of Pan Am Flight 103, which origi-nated with a smaller Boeing 727 jet in Frank-furt. Baggage and passengers from that air-craft were transferred to the jumbo jet atHeathrow airport in London.

Therefore, there were two airports where thebomb could have been smuggled aboard, anda discussion started between Frankfurt andLondon over which was to blame for the secu-rity failure. West German authorities wereinitially confident that no evidence could beestablished to conclude that the bomb had beenloaded in Frankfurt, but this confidence mayhave been based on the fact that some of the727 plane’s luggage had passed through a pres-sure chamber. The British explosive experts,however, believed that the bomb, hidden in atransistor radio, had been set off by a sophisti-cated double detonator device, consisting of abarometer trigger and a timer, which had pro-tected it against early detonation.

Strong evidence pinpointed Frankfurt airportas the more likely place were the bomb hasbeen planted. One of the Toshiba radio cas-sette bombs the German police had found inOctober had been equipped with the same doubledetonator system. Further, it became knownthat one month later another member of thePFLP-GC had also been arrested in Germany,while carrying another radio cassette bombwhich had been manufactured in exactly the


same way. Nevertheless, German authoritieskept insisting that trying to link these bombswith the one that downed Flight 103 was amatter of pure speculation.

Another effort to soften the forebodings of thedisaster was made by U.S. officials who keptconcurring with the Finnish police that thewarning of December 5 was a hoax. It hadbeen, however, a rather accurate hoax, pre-dicting a few weeks before the crash that thetarget to be attacked was a Pan Am flight fromFrankfurt to New York, a hoax also promptingthe U.S. government to advise its diplomaticstaff to avoid Pan Am flights.

According to British investigators, the bombhad consisted of about 300 grams of Semtex(and not 13.5 kilos as an American expert stated),hidden inside a radio cassette player and prob-ably molded and painted like the cassette’sbackplate. Semtex, produced in Czechoslova-kia, is highly explosive, very stable and odor-less, and can be molded into almost any shape.These qualities make it practically undetect-able at normal security checks.

In the past, the PFLP-GC of Achmed Jibril hadearned quite a reputation for using baromet-ric devices against aircraft, and this was thesame group of which 14 members were ar-rested, among them second-in-command HafezKassem Dalkomoni, while three were in pos-session of explosive devices similar to the onethat was used. Nevertheless, perhaps becauseof the German denial that a necessary linkexisted between those arrested and the fatalbomb, other terrorist organizations were alsoinitially suspected, like Abu Ibrahim’s May 15group and Abu Nidal’s al-Fatah Revolution-ary Council.

U.S. officials added to the confusion, admit-ting that Jibril’s men had been responsible forplacing bombs on a railroad track in West Ger-many, during April and May, in attempts toderail two trains carrying U.S. troops, but de-nying there was any direct evidence to con-nect this group with the Pan Am bombing.Other allegations pointed to a collaboration ofthe PFLP-GC with Shiite extremists and Ira-nian terrorist groups, all contributing to the

British conclusion in March 1989 that it wasstill impossible to accuse any individual orgroup as directly responsible for the disaster.

The question of how the bomb had beensmuggled aboard proved to be another riddle.There were speculations about a suicide bomber,about innocent passengers who like Hindawi’sfiancé had been tricked into carrying the bombaboard and about airport employees being bribedto do so, but firm evidence was difficult toobtain.

What was obtained, however, by the public atlarge, was a bad impression of the level ofcommunication and cooperation between theparties involved, and of the implementationof safety measures. A report emerged, pro-duced in 1986 by an Israeli security firm, whichstated that Pan Am was highly vulnerable tomost forms of terrorist attack. It also consid-ered the security system used by most West-ern airports as to be inadequate, being par-ticularly critical of the screening of luggage.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)came under heavy attack by the U.S. House ofRepresentatives Government Activities andTransportation sub-committee, which statedthat before the Lockerbie disaster the FAA hadissued seven warnings that something was tohappen, but they were connected in very vagueand inaccurate terms.

While Frankfurt and London airport officialswere still arguing about which airport was toblame, British police began complaining aboutthe lack of cooperation shown by their WestGerman colleagues, thereby starting a bureau-cratic conflict. A political conflict developedwhen the British Labor opposition accused theminister of transport of administrative sloppi-ness and lying about his handling of the warningsthat had been made by the FAA. All theseconflicts contributed little to the reassuranceof the average citizen who kept wonderingabout aviation security.

The puzzle of the Lockerbie case graduallybecame more complex. In April 1989, Britishinvestigators believed they uncovered an in-ternational network of organized crime, feed-


ing millions of dollars from bank robberies inDenmark to terrorist groups like the PFLP-GC. In May, the Swedish police arrested fivemembers of the PFLP-GC, and assumed thatamong the arrested were the leader and someperpetrators of the Pan Am bombing. In thesame month, a West German magazine revealedthat one of the PFLP-GC members arrested inOctober 1988, Marwan Khreesat, was in fact aWest German intelligence agent; this couldexplain his early release and the reluctance ofthe German authorities afterwards to partici-pate wholeheartedly in the Lockerbie investi-gations. Other sources, however, maintainedthat Khreesat was a double agent who, afterhis release, continued to perform his terroristtask, finishing the device that was to destroyFlight 103.

In October 1989, the Lockerbie investigationteam finally got a new lead, which broughtthem to Malta, where one year before a manbought clothes, the remnants of which hadbeen found in the case where the bomb hadbeen hidden. This evidence, according to theteam, was withheld by the West German po-lice for six months, which was one reason whycooperation between the two forces had prac-tically ceased to exist. Another piece of infor-mation the West Germans knew about for halfa year, showed that on the morning of thebombing, the case with the clothes and thebomb was sent by air from Malta to Frankfurt,where it was checked through and loaded onFlight 103 to London without a passenger ac-companying it. Additionally, the Lockerbieteam discovered that in October 1988 two se-nior members of the PFLP-GC, Hafez KassemDalkomoni and Abu Talb, had visited Maltaand had made contact there with one of theorganization’s European cells on the island.So, suspicions focused again on Jibril’s PFLP-GC and its links with Syria, Iran and Libya.

One version of what might have happenedsuggests that the bomb was fabricated by oneof Jibril’s explosive experts, and later was takenby Abu Talb to Malta, where, together withclothes in order to keep it from moving about,it was put in a suitcase, which was taken aboardby an innocent passenger as a favor to its originalowner and flown to Frankfurt where, notwith-

standing safety rules, it was loaded on Flight103 without being accompanied by a passen-ger. According to this version, the plot wasthe outcome of a cooperative terrorist effort ofJibril’s PFLP-GC and Shiite zealots around ex-minister Ali Akhbar Mohtashemi of Iran, him-self a fanatic, and it was meant as an act ofrevenge for the downing of the Iranian civilaircraft in July 1988.

Another version, put forward by investigatorsof Pan Am, tells a totally different story. Itaccuses CIA agents based in West Germany ofhaving protected, since January 1988, a drugline to the United States in exchange for thedrug trafficker ’s help in liberating Americanhostages in Lebanon. The drug trafficker, how-ever, harboring close links to Jibril’s organiza-tion, permitted the PFLP-GC to use his pro-tected drug line for carrying a bomb aboardthe plane, under the watchful eyes of the CIA.

The story seems hardly credible, but unfortu-nately the identity of the drug trafficker makesit difficult to dismiss it completely as a badjoke. Monzer Al Kassar, as was revealed by arecently published book on his career, is oneof the most wealthy criminals in the world,with excellent connections to some Middle Eastand West European politicians. He made hisfortune as an arms dealer and a drug traf-ficker, and dedicated part of his immense wealthand energy to the terrorist fight against Israel.

Monzer Al Kassar is a personal friend of AbuAbas, the leader of the Palestine LiberationFront who was the brains behind the hijackingof the ship Achille Lauro in 1985. He has aworking relationship with Abu Nidal, the mostnotorious terrorist leader of the Middle East,and has repeatedly sponsored Achmed Jibril’sPFLP-GC, the group most likely to be heldresponsible for the destruction of Flight 103.As a Syrian, he nonetheless travels on a SouthYemen diplomatic passport, which, togetherwith his influential political friend in the MiddleEast and Europe, makes him practically invul-nerable. A man like Monzer Al Kassar couldbe just the right person for a plot as describedby the Pan Am investigators, although it willbe difficult, if not impossible, to find any hardevidence against him.


For the moment, the Lockerbie investiga-tion seems stalemated and because of bu-reaucratic infights, battles of prestige andofficial secrecy of many parties involved,it is uncertain whether the case will everbe solved*. The tragedy of the 270 deadand the grief of their families and friendshave not prevented the aftermath of thecrash to become an unfortunate exampleof how an investigation into such a calam-ity should not be conducted. Airports andaviation companies are likely to lose cred-ibility when their behavior betrays con-cern for their own reputation, and littlerespect for the feelings of the bereavedand the public at large. The same goes forthe secret services involved, which seemedto be more anxious to protect their ownsources of information rather than to sharethem in a combined attempt to bring theinquiries to a satisfactory end. [* A bombingwas subsequently confirmed. — Ed.]

Subsequent Events and Concern

During the last few years the number ofhijackings has sharply declined; this is the goodpart of the story. The bad part is that duringthe same time the use of aircraft bombs hasgrown. Apart from the cases described herein some detail, there were other crashes, ei-ther probably or certainly caused by explo-sives. For instance, some South African air-craft crashed during the last two years, andalthough heavy restrictions on reporting makeit impossible to ascertain the cause, the use ofexplosives was not ruled out.

In August 1988, president Mohammed Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan and 30 other persons lost theirlives in a crash, probably caused by a gas bomb.In September 1989, a DC-10 aircraft of the Uniondes Transports Aériens (UTA) with 170 peopleon board was downed while it flew over thedesert; French investigators concluded fromthe debris which was spread over a hundredsquare kilometers that an explosive device,probably Semtex, was to blame for the calam-ity. And in November 1989, the aircraft bombeven became a tool for criminals, when theMedellín drug cartel put a bomb in a Columbian

passenger jet and downed it, killing all 107people on board.

The lessons to be learned from all these casesare manifold. One is that in terms of casual-ties the use of the aircraft bomb is a far morelethal method of attack than hijacking or otherknown forms of terrorist attack. From 1985onwards, more than 1,000 people lost theirlives in bomb attacks on aircraft, thus makingthis explosive device the deadliest terroristthreat to aviation so far. This fact has to betaken into serious consideration by all avia-tion authorities, for in the long run it mayhave a devastating effect on the public’s trustin aviation security. Going through a hijack-ing has never been a pleasant experience, butone had at least a fair chance to come outalive; an aircraft bomb usually does not offerthis prospect.

The main reason for hijacking, moreover, hasbeen to obtain a means of coercion, in order tonegotiate; the paramount reasons for bomb-ing an aircraft have mostly been revenge, pun-ishment or sheer murderousness, only placatedby a massacre. A successful bomb attack mayeven become negotiable if the bombers threatenthat it may not have been their last one. So,from the terrorist point of view, the bomb ismultifuctional while the hijacking is not, andtherefore the former is more likely to be usedin the future.

Another incentive for using bombs lies in thelower risk of being caught. Although the nec-essary presence of hijackers increases such risk,the bomber may very well be far away whenhis plot is carried out. Besides, a bomb is somuch easier to smuggle aboard, especially whenthe explosive material is of high quality andonly requires a small quantity.

An additional reason why terrorists prefer bombsnowadays, may have to do with the form andcontent of aviation security, which has devel-oped into a rather effective deterrent againsthijacking, but which is still practically defenselessagainst bombing. For years, hijackers haveshunned Western airports, knowing that secu-rity precautions make it very difficult to smuggletheir hardware aboard. But bombers seem


hardly deterred in this respect; the Air India,TWA, Hindawi and Lockerbie occurrences wereall connected with Western airports.

One factor which makes it so difficult to pre-vent bombs from being taken aboard aircraftis the number of people that must be checked.Every boarding passenger falls in this category,and apart from them specifically are the pas-sengers who check their luggage but miss theirflight. After the Hindawi affair, El Al securityagents kept a watchful eye on women whotravel alone, as a suspicious type of personmost liable to be enlisted into carrying explo-sives.

One way to prevent such disastrous surpriseluggage, is to find an effective way to ensurethat all passengers guarantee the luggage theycarry to be entirely their own. Such confirma-tion, in order to become effective, must beobligatory, and not voluntary. For example, atSchiphol Airport signs have been put up whichonly advise passengers against carrying an-other person’s luggage; the signs, moreover,have been put up in such a way that it is verydifficult to see them. Some sort of a simple,but effective administrative system should beworked out that would make it almost impos-sible for innocent passengers to be duped intosuch a dangerous act of kindness.

Bombers like the North Korean terrorist couple,however, who bring a bomb aboard themselvesand then leave the plane before it reaches itsdestination, would not be discovered by suchmeasures. They might be stopped from ex-ecuting their sabotage plans by ruling thatevery passenger who carries electrical equip-ment has to separate the energy source, likebatteries, from the object it feeds. Radios andpocket calculators have been used as bombsand detonators, so there is every reason tofocus security attention on these and similardevices. An additional measure might rule thatthese objects are only carried as hand lug-gage, to make effective control easier. Thesetwo measures combined, if applied rigorously,might even frustrate terrorists attempts à laHindawi. Another, more severe measure wouldbe to ban these devices altogether.

Passport control may also be improved, in or-der to spot false identity papers more effec-tively. The trouble is, however, that state-spon-sored terrorists or people like Monzer Al Kassarmay very well travel on authentic passports.But whatever security measures are taken, theywill never be foolproof. Some airports arebetter organized than others, and are morecapable of introducing and applying new mea-sures. This creates the danger, as it did duringthe hijacking period, that bombers will lookfor less organized airports to carry out theirplots. Introduction of high tech equipment,like Thermal Neutron Analysis, which up to acertain point is able to detect explosives, canbe of help but may cause the same effect. Thecost of a TNA apparatus, some $900,000, willrender it prohibitive for airports which sim-ply cannot afford such investments.

Finally, in order to get an accurate picture ofthe threat, it may be worthwhile to analyze allformer aircraft bombings in great detail, andthis time with the help of classified documents.

As already suggested, the use of airplane bombsmakes it far more difficult to predict whichcountry or which aviation company may be atrisk. In the case of hijacking, it has alwaysbeen possible, up to a certain point, to predictwhich would be likely targets, such as statesthat had terrorists in prison. But revenge,punishment and sheer hate as motives ridi-cule any prophesying effort.

The only clue may be the kind of activitiessome terrorist organizations and their spon-soring states have developed. As in the past,when some organization special ized inhijackings, other ones now have a bombingreputation like Abu Ibrahim’s May 15 groupand Achmed Jabril’s PFLP-GC, so it is usefulto keep an eye on them specifically. But unfor-tunately, this does not rule out the danger comingfrom newcomers, like Shiite extremists or lon-ers like Hindawi. Some states have been ex-posed as sponsors or perpetrators of aviationbombings like Syria, Iran and North Korea,but then again, these states are not the onlyones with such potential. Notwithstandingthese uncertainties, combined international effortand intelligence are required to bring some


order and effectiveness in the fight againstaircraft bombing.

Warnings at random, like that which the U.S.government gave late in 1989 in an attempt topreclude the same criticism as was launchedafter Lockerbie, are paramount to crying “wolf”once too often. Yet, the terrorist bomb threat

against civil aviation is far too lethal to ignoreor underestimate.♦

About the AuthorC.J. Visser studied modern history at the Universityof Amsterdam during the 1960s. He was a researcherat the Netherlands Institute of Questions on Peaceand Security, The Hague, from 1970 to 1983. Sincethen he has been a member of the research departmentof the Netherlands Institute of International RelationsClingendael, The Hague, where he has written booksand articles about terrorism.

A recognized authority on the subject of terrorism,Visser has studied the Basque separatist groupETA and the Italian Red Brigade, as well as terroristgroups in Latin America and the Middle East. Hehas spoken and written for the Flight SafetyFoundation and is the author of the FSF pamphlet“Civil Aviation Remains Vulnerable to Terrorism.”


The United Kingdom has one of the highestlevels of civil aviation activity in the world,particularly in international airline services.In 1980, U.K. airlines flew 34.72 billion pas-senger miles (56 billion passenger kilometers)in total operations and 33.5 billion passengermiles (54 billion passenger kilometers) in in-ternational operations. By 1989, the passen-ger miles in total operations increased to 54.8billion (88.4 billion passenger kilometers) andin international operation increased to 52.1billion (84 billion passenger kilometers). Amongthe International Civil Aviation Organization(ICAO) member states, the volume of U.K.airline worldwide service is ranked numberfour. In international passenger service theyare ranked second in the world next to theUnited States.

The functions of promoting civil aviation ac-tivities in the United Kingdom are jointly per-formed by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)and the Department of Transportation. TheCAA is both a public service enterprise and aregulatory body. Its responsibilities include:

• the national air traffic services, bothair traffic and telecommunications, inconjunction with the Ministry of De-fense.

• the economic regulation of the civil avia-tion industry, including air transportlicensing and approval of air fares, andthe licensing of air travel organizers.

• air safety, both airworthiness and op-erational safety, including licensing offlight crews, aircraft engineers and aero-dromes, and certification of U.K. air-lines and aircraft.

• consumer interest, private aviation re-quirements, economic and scientific re-search and collection and publicationof aviation data.

Aside from the CAA, the Department of Trans-portation is responsible for government civilaviation policy, international civil aviation re-lations and coordination of aviation security.The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB)of the department is responsible for investiga-tion of aircraft accidents that occur in the UnitedKingdom. The AAIB publishes bulletins onreportable accidents.

In the past decade, U.K. civil aviation activi-ties showed a continuing increase with someminor leveling off in some years. Althoughthere were few changes in the number of air-ports open to public use, aircraft on the U.K.Register increased 76 percent, the pilot popu-lation increased 42 percent, airline service in

Civil Aviation and Safety in United KingdomA Decade of Progress 1980-1989

Shung C. HuangStatistical Consultant

Aviation Statistics


creased 59 percent and general aviation air-craft hours flown increased 22 percent.

Table 1 shows that in Great Britain there are140 airports open to public use and another121 for private use only. In U.K. territories,there are about 15 airfields open to public use.

Table 2 shows the number of aircraft on theU.K. Register. In 1980, there were 5,600 regis-tered aircraft. Of these, about 10 percent werehelicopters and 90 percent were fixed-wingaircraft. The number of aircraft increased to

7,137 in 1985 and almost 10,000 in 1989. Thenumber of aircraft on the U.K. register wouldwell exceed 10,000 if gliders and balloons wereincluded in the total count of aircraft regis-tered. It is estimated that about 10 percent ofthe total aircraft, almost all of which were jettransport and other large aircraft, were usedby British airlines for domestic and interna-tional airline operations.

Table 3 shows the changes in the U.K. pilotpopulation by pilot certificate. In the begin-ning of the last decade, the United Kingdomhad 33,289 licensed civil aviation pilots. Ofthe total, 67 percent were private pilots, 10percent commercial pilots, 22 percent airline-rated pilots and about 1 percent were gliderpilots and balloonists. In 1988, the licensedpilots increased to 47,312, or up 42 percent.The number of airline-rated pilots increased53 percent and account for 24 percent of U.K.’stotal pilot population. One source reportedthat as of mid-year 1990, there were 13,096aircraft on the U.K. register. If this figure isused for comparison, the pilot and aircraftratio is estimated to be approximately 3:1 whichis about the same as in Canada and the UnitedStates. The worldwide average pilot-to-air-craft ratio is estimated to be close to 2.5:1.During the past decade, U.K. civil aviationactivities, both in airline and general avia-tion, increased about four to five percent an-nually in terms of aircraft hours flown.

The safety performance of U.K. civil aviationis very comparable with other nations in theworld. Although the total reportable acci-dents and fatal accidents of U.K. airlines andgeneral aviation operations fluctuated annu-ally, the accident rates for U.K. civil aviationover the year showed a trend of slight im-provement.

Table 4 shows the U.K. airline accidents andrates for the period 1980 to 1987. In the eight-year period, U.K. airlines were involved intwo fatal accidents in 1980 and one fatal acci-dent each in 1981, 1985 and 1986. All otheryears were free of fatal accidents. Althoughthe accident statistics for the latest two yearsare not available for the comparison, the trendfor the eight-year period as shown in Table 4appears to be continuing downward.

Table 1 — United Kingdom Airports1980 - 1989

Open to Public Use Private Use OnlyYear Land Water Heliport Total1980 131 1 8 140 1211982 131 1 8 140 1211983 129 1 7 137 1211984 129 1 7 137 1211985 Not Reported1986 Not Reported1987 126 2 10 138 1211988 145 2 6 137 1211989 137 2 3 142 121

Source: ICAO Annual Report and monthlybulletin.

Table 2 — Civil Aircraft on Register 1/United Kingdom

1980 - 1989

Year Fixed-Wing Rotorcraft Total1980 5,901 549 5,6401981 6,132 600 6,6321982 Not Reported1983 Not Reported1984 Not Reported1985 6,544 593 7,1371986 7,151 617 7,7681987 6,462 2/ 635 7,0971988 9,017 2/ 745 9,7621989 9,250 720 9,972

Source: Aircraft on Register — ICAO Annual Publica-tion.1/ An average of 8 percent of the total registeredaircraft was used for airline operations.2/ The reasons for the large decrease and increaseover the years were not available.


Table 3 — United Kingdom Civil Aviation PilotsCalendar Year 1980-1989

Year Private Pilot Commercial Sr. Commercial Airline Balloon Glider TotalFixed Rotor Fixed Rotor Pilots Rated

1980 22,196 193 2,727 175 285 7,458 255 n/a 33,2891981 n/a 2,818 167 239 7,656 255 n/a —1982 n/a 2,589 239 311 8,448 351 n/a —1983 n/a 2,833 179 190 8,459 351 n/a —1984 Not available1985 26,008 723 3,173 149 164 9,161 526 206 40,1101986 n/a 3,496 185 205 10,161 596 249 —1987 n/a 3,836 225 245 10,867 590 250 —1988 30,000 4,388 258 327 11,385 704 250 47,3121989 not reported yet

Source: Civil Aviation Statistics of the World — ICAO Annual Publication.

Table 4 — United Kingdom Airline Total AccidentsFatal Accidents and Rates 1980-1987

Fixed Wing aircraft over 50,600 pounds (23,000 kg) MTWA only

Year State Revenue Revenue Reportable AccidentsFlight A/C KM’s A/C Hrs Total Fatal Rate per 100,000 hrs.(000) 000,000 000 Total Fatal

1980 577.8 588.7 970.2 9 2 0.86 0.191981 530.5 555.3 971.8 7 1 0.72 0.101982 531.2 522.8 931.8 4 - 0.43 -1983 646.6 518.7 932.8 4 - 0.43 -1984 579.2 563.0 1,004.4 9 - 0.90 -1985 589.8 576.7 1,024.2 4 1 0.39 0.101986 616.3 618.0 1,092.7 10 1 0.97 0.101987 660.8 675.6 1,190.9 4 - 0.34 -1988 714.6 727.3 1,294.1 11 - 0.85 -

Table 5 — United Kingdom General Aviation Total Accidents,Fatal Accidents and Rates

1980-1989Fixed Wing Aircraft under 12,500 pounds (5,700 kg) MTWA

Reportable Accidents Estimated Rate per 100,000 hoursYear Total Fatal Hrs (x1,000) Total Fatal1980 189 15 652 29.0 2.31981 179 18 640 28.0 2.81982 128 9 620 20.6 1.51983 169 19 634 26.5 3.01984 149 11 669 22.3 1.61985 140 16 684 20.5 2.31986 168 12 698 24.0 1.71987 173 27 713 24.2 3.81988 180 12 804 22.4 1.51989 213 11 965 22.1 1.1

Source: U.K. Civil Aviation Authority.


Table 5 shows the general aviation fixed-wingaircraft total accidents, fatal accidents and rates,and Table 6 shows the rotary wing aircrafttotal accidents, fatal accidents and rates forthe past decade. The safety record for 1989was not encouraging, particularly because the

Table 6 — United Kingdom GeneralAviation Total Accident, Fatal

Accidents and Rates1980-1989

Rotary Wing Aircraft under 5,700 kg MWTA Rate per

Reportable Accidents Estimated 100,000 hoursYear Total Fatal Hrs (x1,000) Total Fatal1980 19 0 82 23.2 01981 16 2 89 18.0 2.21982 19 2 100 19.0 2.01983 21 5 94 22.3 5.31984 27 3 109 24.8 2.81985 14 0 116 12.1 01986 15 1 124 12.1 0.81987 14 1 131 10.7 0.81988 23 0 150 15.3 01989 30 3 150 20.0 2.0

Source: U.K. Civil Aviation Authority.

Figure 7

total and fatal accident rates for rotary aircraftwere much higher than those recorded in thepreceding four years. However, apart fromthe year-to-year variation, the overall accidentrates of U.K. general aviation have declinedsince the early 1980s. Figure 7 depicts the 10-year trends of both total and fatal accidents. ♦

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989

30292827262524232221201918

5.04.54.03.53.02.52.01.51.00.5

0

Year

x

Fatal Accident Rate per 100,000 Hours

Total Accident Rate per 100,000 Aircraft Hours

Rate per 100,000Aircraft Hours

United Kingdom General Aviation Accident Rates1980 — 1989

United Kingdom General Aviation Accident Rates1980-1989

4. Aeronautics, Commercial — Terrorism.

Partial Contents: Introduction — Overviewand Perspective — Terrorism: Defining the Term— HumInt and Beyond in Counter-Terrorism— Domestic Intelligence Gathering From Sub-versive Groups and Inside Prisons — Key Pointsin Executive Protection — How to Calculatethe Cost of a Life — Aviation Security — ThePam Am 103 Bomb — USSR Pushes AviationSecurity Upgrade — Crisis-Free Crisis Man-agement — Plastic Explosives Data — RecentTerrorist Bombs — Airliner and Nuclear Site

Books

Security Intelligence Sourcebook — includingWho’s Who in Terrorism / Frank G. McGuire.— Silver Spring, MD : Interests, Ltd., 8512Cedar Street, Silver Spring, MD 20910-4322U.S., c. 1990. 304p., ill. ISBN: 0-929457-02-1.

Key Words1. Terrorism.2. Terrorists.3. Aeronautics, Commercial — Security Mea-

sures.

Reports Received at FSFJerry Lederer Aviation Library


Diagrams — What Is Political Extremism —International Groups — Active Terrorist Groups— Domestic Terrorism — Who’s Who in Ter-rorism — Statistics on In-Flight Explosions —President’s Commission on Aviation Security:List of Airline Bombings.

Summary: “This sourcebook is intended foruse by security intelligence professionals incarrying out their responsibilities for protect-ing lives and property. It provides selectedreference materials on perspectives, techniques,incidents, weapons and tactics, targets suchas aircraft and nuclear facilities, group activi-ties, group and individual identification andbackgrounds, and a wealth of other basic data.”[introduction]

Reports

Aircraft Accident Report: United Airlines Flight811, Boeing 747-122, N4713U, Honolulu, Hawaii,February 24, 1989. — Washington, D.C.: Na-tional Transportation Safety Board; Springfield,Va.: Available through NTIS*, April 16, 1990.Report NTSB/AAR-90/01, PB90-910401. 72p.

Key Words1. Aeronautics — Accidents — 1989.2. Aeronautics — Accidents— Cargo Doors.3. Aeronautics — Accidents — Maintenance

and Inspection.4. Airplanes — Design and Construction5. Airplanes— Airworthiness.6. United Airlines — Accidents — 1989.

Summary: United Airlines, Flight 811, Boeing747, Los Angeles, California, to Sydney, Aus-tralia, 3 flightcrew, 15 flight attendants, and337 passengers aboard the airplane. After leavingHonolulu, and climbing between 22,000 and23,000 feet, a “thump” was heard which shookthe airplane. Flightcrew said that this soundwas followed immediately by a “tremendousexplosion.” Nine of the passengers were ejectedfrom the airplane and lost at sea. The NTSBdetermined that the probable cause of thisaccident was the sudden opening of the im-

properly latched forward lower lobe cargo doorin flight and the subsequent explosive decom-pression. The explosive decompression causedextensive damage to the fuselage and cabinstructure adjacent to the door. Contributingto the cause of the accident was a deficiencyin the design of the cargo door locking mecha-nisms, which made them susceptible to inservicedamage, and which allowed the door to beunlatched, yet to indicate a properly latchedand locked position. Also contributing to theaccident was the lack of proper maintenanceand inspection of the cargo door by UnitedAirlines, and a lack of timely corrective actionby Boeing and the FAA following the 1987cargo door opening incident on a Pan Am B-747. The Safety Board issued three safety rec-ommendations (A-89-92 through -94) as a re-sult of this investigation.

Reference

Federal Aviation Regulations, Part 135 - Air TaxiOperators and Commercial Operators, Change35, effective February 25, 1990, and effectiveApril 5, 1990. — Washington, D.C. : U.S. Fed-eral Aviation Administration.

Key Words1. Aeronautics, Commercial — Law and Leg-

islation.2. Aircraft — Seating — Law and Legisla-

tion.3. Aircraft Cabins — Emergency Exits.4. Aircraft Cabins — Smoking — Law and

Legislation.

Summary: This change incorporates SpecialFederal Aviation Regulations (SFAR) 50-2, SpecialFlight Rules in the Vicinity of the Grand Can-yon National Park, effective April 5, 1990, andtwo amendments in Federal Aviation Regula-tions (FAR) Part 135: Amendment 135-35, Pro-hibition Against Smoking, effective February25, 1990; and Amendment 135-36, Exit RowSeating, effective April 5, 1990.♦

*U.S. Department of CommerceNational Technical Information Service (NTIS)Springfield, VA 22161 U.S.Telephone: (703) 487-4780.


Accident/Incident Briefs

This information is intended to provide an aware-ness of problem areas through which such occur-rences may be prevented in the future. Accident/incident briefs are based upon preliminary infor-mation from government agencies, aviation orga-nizations, press information and other sources.This information may not be accurate.

of the source of navigation information dis-played on the horizontal situation indicator,the crew’s lack of familiarity with the aircraft’scockpit configuration and inadequate trainingand operational guidance provided by the com-pany. The air traffic controllers were also citedfor not ensuring that the crew was aware in amore timely manner that the aircraft had de-viated from the published approach course.

Little Lights CanCause Big Problems

Lockheed L-1011 TriStar: Minor damage. No inju-ries.

During taxi for takeoff, the aircraft was back-tracked along the runway. While turning atthe end of the runway, the right-hand mainwheel tires rolled over some raised runwayedge light fixtures. There was no turning circleand the published width of the runway is 150feet.

The pilot of the aircraft continued the taxi toline up on the centerline and the takeoff waswithout further incident. The flight was com-pleted normally. Note was made of the inci-dent in the aircraft maintenance log and aninspection of the starboard main wheel tireswas requested. The maintenance engineer whoinspected the tires reported that he consid-ered both tires to have been cut sufficientlythat they could have deflated at any time. Hereported that the tires should have been re-placed before departure. The two damagedtires were scrapped and the hubs were over-hauled before being returned to service.

The pilot was counseled that the aircraft shouldbe returned for inspection following such anincident. His decision to continue had beeninfluenced by lack of spares and passengerhandling facilities at the departure airport, acommercial consideration that was counter tothe safety of the operation, according to thecarrier ’s flight manager.

Is That GPWSFor Real?

Boeing 737: No damage. No injuries.

The aircraft was flying in clouds during aninstrument approach when the ground prox-imity warning system (GPWS) twice soundedan alert. After the first alert, the crew initiateda climb to a safe altitude. Then, believing thewarning was invalid, they resumed the de-scent. Four minutes later, the airport control-ler warned the crew that the aircraft was welleast of the intended approach course; aboutthe same time, the second GPWS alert sounded.The aircraft again was flown to a safe altitude.Another approach was flown and the aircraftwas landed without incident.

Investigators determined that the captain mis-selected the VHF navigation transfer switchand the pilots did not confirm that the selec-tion was correct, nor did the crew use all availableaids during the approach. Contributing fac-tors included the lack of a positive indication

Air CarrierAir Carrier


Rough WeatherCauses Distraction

Piper PA-31-350: Minor damage. No injuries.

The aircraft was approaching to land, with thepilot handling the controls under the supervi-sion of a training captain. It was 2130 hourson a mid-March night in England.

Locally severe turbulence was encountered abouteight nautical miles from the runway thresh-old. At five miles the instructor pilot saw thepilot select the landing gear lever to the downposition, but reported that he was distractedby a momentary illumination of the door un-safe light. After confirming that the door wassecure, the pilot returned his attention to thelanding approach which appeared to be nor-mal.

As the pilot began the landing flare, a slightscuffing sound was heard. The training cap-tain immediately took over and called for fullpower and made a go-around, entering a left-hand pattern for another landing attempt. Thegear lever was recycled up and down again.The gear extended and three green lights illu-minated. The following landing was normal,but inspection after the aircraft was parkedrevealed that the propellers were damagedbecause they had struck the runway duringthe first landing attempt. The ADF antennamounted on the rear fuselage also had beendamaged.

During debriefing, the training captain reportedthat he had noticed no red or green gear indi-cator lights during the first approach and thatthe landing gear warning horn had not sounded.At no stage in the first approach had the manifoldpressure of either engine been reduced below

12 inches, the point below which the warninghorn is activated with gear up. He confirmedthat the gear warning circuit breaker had notbeen pulled out during the flight, and offeredthe opinion that the other pilot may not havemoved the landing gear lever far enough intothe down position just prior to the door un-safe light distraction.

No Safe WayThrough the Pass

de Havilland DHC2 Beaver: Aircraft destroyed.Fatal injuries to one.

The pilot was flying the non-scheduled cargoaircraft up an Alaskan valley intending to crossa pass during the early morning daylight inAugust.

Approaching the 2,745-foot-high pass, the pi-lot encountered clouds at his flight level andattempted to make a 180-degree turn to returnalong the route he had flown. However, theaircraft stalled and impacted terrain at a 40-degree slope in a steep, nose-down but nearlywings-level attitude.

The aircraft was destroyed and the pilot, theonly occupant, was fatally injured. Causal fac-tors included the presence of instrument me-teorological conditions, mountainous terrainand loss of control of the aircraft.

The Mystery of the‘Up’ Gear Lever

Beechcraft Model 58 Baron: Moderate damage. Noinjuries.

Air Taxi/CommuterAir TaxiCommuter

Corporate ExecutiveCorporateExecutive


The aircraft was cleared for a straight-in ap-proach after a cross country pleasure flight.The 1,300-hour private pilot was accompaniedby one passenger, who also held a private pi-lot license.

About a mile out on final, landing gear wasextended and flaps were selected down in pro-gressive increments. Both occupants confirmedthe presence of three green gear-down lights.

When the pilot applied the brakes after hav-ing made a gentle touchdown, the nose land-ing gear collapsed followed by the two maingear. There was no fire and no one was in-jured. The aircraft sustained damage to theunderside of the fuselage and to the propel-lers, landing gear and flaps.

While the two occupants were exiting the air-craft, the pilot noticed that the landing gearselector lever was in the up position. Neitherof the two pilots had remembered touchingthe gear lever after it had been placed in thedown position on approach, either in the airor on the ground, even though they had toclimb over the seats to evacuate the aircraftthrough a rear door because the front doorwas jammed shut.

Flying BeforeThe Storm — Almost

Cessna 421: Moderate damage. No injuries.

The aircraft had cleared Customs at a coastalairport after flying from France to England.The pilot was preparing to depart for an in-land airport, a grass strip approximately 2,000feet long.

The weather was generally VFR but the pilotwas aware of a spring rainstorm to the northof his course. The area of poor weather washeaded toward his destination but be estimatedthat he would arrive ahead of it and be able toland without being affected by weather prob-lems.

Upon arrival at his destination at approximately1820 hours, the pilot set up an approach to

runway 25; there was a light wind from thesouthwest. The touchdown was normal but,as soon as the pilot applied braking he recog-nized that he had not, after all, beat the storm.The grass runway was wet and very slippery,evidence that the storm had already passedover the field.

The pilot realized that he would not be able tostop the aircraft before the end of the runwayby normal braking, so he ground-looped theaircraft to the left in an attempt to stop in ashorter distance. This maneuver was only par-tially successful and the aircraft continued tothe left and stopped with the left wing stuckin a hedge on the southern edge of the airport.The aircraft suffered damage to the left wing,fuselage, tail and left main landing gear. Therewere no injuries to the pilot or any of his threepassengers.

Late, LongAnd Unlucky

Piper PA-28-180: Moderate damage. No injuries.

The pilot was approaching for a full-flap landingin light wind conditions. The runway lengthwas 2,000 feet, of which slightly more than1,600 feet were declared usable. A road bor-dered by hedges on both sides crossed theextended runway centerline at the boundaryof the airport.

The aircraft touched down long, and the pilotwas concerned that he might not be able tostop before the end of the runway with theabsence of a headwind, so he attempted toraise the flaps and go around. However, thelanding gear hit the first hedge adjacent to theroad and the aircraft impacted the second hedgebefore coming to a stop approximately 1,200

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feet beyond the road.

Pilotage A‘Lost’ Art?

Reims Cessna F152: Substantial damage. Minorinjuries to two.

The private pilot made numerous navigationalerrors during the cross-country flight causedby mis-identification of ground features. Theresult was a large deviation from the intendedcourse.

The situation was compounded when the pi-lot mistakenly identified an island where hisintended destination airport was located; hespent substantial time trying to find the air-port which was not there. A critical shortageof fuel finally necessitated a precautionary land-ing.

The pilot selected a field for his landing thatwas plowed. Fortunately, the furrows ran par-allel to the wind and he made a gentle touch-down. However, when the nosewheel was low-ered to the surface, it dug into the soft earthand the aircraft nosed over onto its back. Therewas no fire. The two occupants, who wereusing lap and shoulder harnesses, were ableto evacuate the overturned aircraft with onlyminor injuries. The wing roots and nose gearof the aircraft were broken, and the engineand the tail assembly were damaged.

Too CloseFor Comfort

Aerospatiale SA-365: Damage to rotor blades. Noinjuries.

The rotorcraft landed at a main road intersec-tion adjacent to a hospital to deliver a patientafter an aerial ambulance flight. The two roads

had been closed to traffic by police and, inorder to relieve the traffic situation as quicklyas possible, the helicopter was to be flown to anearby park to wait for the return of the doc-tor and paramedic who had accompanied thepatient on the flight to the hospital.

During the takeoff for the repositioning flight,however, the main rotor blade tips brushedsome trees. There appeared to be no adverseeffect on control of the aircraft; the pilot electedto continue the takeoff and landed in the parkas planned. After the engine had been shutdown and the rotors had stopped, the pilotinspected the main rotor blade tips which hadto be replaced because of damage.

Helicopter PullsThe Plug at Show

MBB BO-105: Minor damage. No injuries.

The rotorcraft was being used in support ofpolice operations at a public show ground.There had been complaints about downwashand noise during the first day of the event andofficials decided upon a different helicopteroperating site without consulting the crew.

The takeoff path from the new site was ob-structed at the upwind end by a four-foot hedgebelow power cables that were supported by35-foot-high poles. Since there was not suffi-cient distance available to take off over thecables, the pilot decided to air taxi below thembefore beginning takeoffs, a technique in whichhe had earlier received training. Several suc-cessful departures were made using this tech-nique.

After his last departure, however, the pilotwas advised by radio that the show had lostelectrical power. He returned to the takeoffsite and reported that the power cables be-neath which he had been air taxiing were sev-ered. He landed and inspected his aircraft,and discovered slight damage to both tail ro-tor blades. He attributed the cause to prema-ture rotation into the takeoff maneuver with-out ensuring that the tail rotor was clear ofthe cables. ♦

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Documents

Civil Aviation and the Aircraft Bomb - Flight Safety Foundation