Philippine Airlines Flight 434
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| Summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 11 December 1994 |
| Type | In-flight bomb explosion |
| Site | Minami Daito Island |
| Fatalities | 1 |
| Injuries | 10 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 747-283B |
| Operator | Philippine Airlines |
| Tail number | EI-BWF |
| Passengers | 273 |
| Crew | 20 |
| Survivors | 292 |
Philippine Airlines Flight 434 (PAL434, PR434) was the route designator of a flight from Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Metro Manila, Philippines, to New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport), Narita near Tokyo, Japan, with one stop at Mactan-Cebu International Airport, Cebu. On December 11, 1994, the Boeing 747-283B on the route was on its second leg, from Cebu to Tokyo, when a bomb exploded, killing one passenger. The rest of the passengers and the crew survived.
Contents |
[edit] The bombing
Authorities later discovered that a passenger on the aircraft's preceding leg was Ramzi Yousef, a master Al-Qaeda bomber and terrorist. He was later convicted of the World Trade Center bombing. Yousef boarded the flight under the assumed name of Armaldo Forlani.
Yousef assembled a bomb in the lavatory and stuck it under Seat 26K on the right-hand side of the fuselage, setting the timer to detonate the explosives four hours later. He and 25 other passengers left the plane at Cebu.
Two hours before arrival at Tokyo, the bomb exploded at 11:43 P.M. while Flight 434 was 31,000 feet above Minami Daito Island, which is located nearby Okinawa and is 260 miles (420 km) southwest of Tokyo.
The explosion ripped the body of 24-year old Haruki Ikegami, a Japanese businessman occupying the seat, in half. He was an industrial sewing machine maker returning from a trip to Cebu. Flight attendants covered him with a blanket. Ten passengers sitting in front of Ikegami were also injured. The bomb tore out a two square foot (0.2 m²) portion of the cabin floor, revealing the cargo hold underneath, but the fuselage of the plane stayed intact.
The Boeing 747-283B, tail number EI-BWF, made an emergency landing in Naha Airport, Okinawa, one hour after the bomb exploded. When the control columns stopped functioning normally, veteran Captain Eduardo Reyes and his crew resorted to steering via throttle control, reminiscent of United Airlines Flight 232. The aircraft's other 272 passengers and 20 crew members survived.
[edit] Location of bomb
The seat where the bomb exploded (seat 26K) would normally be above the center wing fuel tank on a Boeing 747 but on this particular model of 747 the tank was located slightly further back. Seat 26K was just one row in front of the tank.
[edit] The bomb
US prosecutors said the device was a "Mark II" "microbomb" constructed using Casio digital watches as described in Phase I of Operation Bojinka of which this was a test. On Flight 434, Yousef used one tenth of the explosive power he planned to use on eleven U.S. airliners in January of 1995. The bomb was, or at least all of its components were, designed to slip through airport security checks undetected. The explosive used was liquid nitroglycerin, which was disguised as a bottle of contact lens fluid. The wires he used were hidden in the heel of his shoe. At that time, metal detectors used in airports did not go down far enough to detect anything there.
[edit] The aftermath
After the bombing, a man claiming to represent a rebel group said in a telephone call to the Manila office of the Associated Press, "We are Abu Sayyaf Group. We explode one plane from Cebu." [1]
Manila police uncovered his plan on the night of January 6 and the early morning of January 7, 1995, and Yousef was arrested a month later in Pakistan.
[edit] Flight 434 today
Today flight 434 no longer originates in Manila, but instead it is a Cebu-Tokyo flight and uses Airbus A330 aircraft rather than Boeing 747s. Philippine Airlines still operates a Manila-Tokyo route as flight 432.
[edit] Flight 434 Coverage
In addition to the news broadcasts, the popular National Geographic Channel show Air Crash Investigation (also known as Mayday) aired an episode about Philippine Airlines Flight 434 called Bomb on Board.
[edit] See also
- List of terrorist incidents
- List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
- Flying an airplane without control surfaces
