Philippine Airlines Flight 434
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| Summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 11 December 1994 |
| Type | In-flight bomb explosion, loss of flight controls |
| Site | Minami Daito Island |
| Passengers | 273 |
| Crew | 20 |
| Injuries | 10 |
| Fatalities | 1 |
| Survivors | 292 |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 747-283B |
| Operator | Philippine Airlines |
| Tail number | EI-BWF |
| Flight origin |  Ninoy Aquino International Airport |
| Last stopover | Mactan-Cebu International Airport |
| Destination |  Narita International Airport |
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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, tail number EI-BWF, flew on its second leg, from Cebu to Tokyo, when a bomb exploded, killing one passenger. The rest of the passengers and the crew survived.
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[edit] The bombing
Authorities later discovered that a passenger on the aircraft's preceding leg was Ramzi Yousef, an Al-Qaeda bomber and terrorist. He was later convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yousef boarded the flight under the assumed name of Armaldo Forlani.[1]
The flight crew consisted of veteran Captain Eduardo "Ed" Reyes[2], First Officer Jaime Herrera, and Systems Engineer Dexter Comendador.[1]
Yousef assembled a bomb in the lavatory and put it in the lifejacket pocket under Seat 26K on the right-hand side of the fuselage, setting the timer to detonate the explosives four hours later. Domestic flight attendant Maria Delacruz noticed that Yousef kept switching seats during the course of the Manila to Cebu flight.[1] Yousef and 25 other passengers left the plane at Cebu. 256 passengers and a different cabin crew boarded in Cebu. Many of them consisted of Japanese people; some of them were coworkers traveling as part of a tour group. Airport congestion delayed the departure of Flight 434 from Cebu for 38 minutes. All of the passengers boarded by 8:30 A.M.; the bomb had been planted around two hours earlier. PAL 434 cleared for takeoff at 8:48 A.M.[1]
Two hours before arrival at Tokyo, the bomb exploded at 11:43 A.M. while Flight 434 cruised on autopilot 31,000 feet (9,400 m) above Minami Daito Island[1], which is located nearby Okinawa Island and is 260 miles (420 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo.
The explosion ripped the body of 24-year old Haruki Ikegami (池上春樹 Ikegami Haruki?), a Japanese businessman occupying the seat, in half[1]. He was an industrial sewing machine maker returning from a trip to Cebu. The lower half of his body fell into the cargo hold.[1] Ten passengers sitting in front of Ikegami were also injured; one needed urgent medical care. 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.
After the explosion the aircraft banked to the right; the autopilot immediately corrected the bank; Reyes discovered that the bomb disabled the aircraft's steering systems.[1]
Masaharu Mochizuki, a passenger on the flight, recalled that injured passengers tried to go away from the blast site. Cabin crew told passengers to remain where they were. Fernando Bayot, a flight attendant covering the forward part of the aircraft, moved an injured passenger away from the bomb site. Bayot then saw Ikegami and tried to pull him out of the hole; Ikegami died minutes after the explosion. Flight attendants covered Ikegami with a blanket and pretended to attend to his needs in order to prevent additional panic.[1]
After the blast Reyes asked Comendador to survey the blast site to check for damage. Reyes placed the Mayday call, requesting landing at Naha Airport, Okinawa Island, Okinawa Prefecture. The Japanese air traffic controller experienced difficulty in trying to understand Reyes's request, so an American air traffic controller from a United States military base on Okinawa took over and processed Reyes's commands. The autopilot stopped responding to Reyes's commands as the aircraft flew past Okinawa. Reyes said in an interview that when he disengaged the autopilot, he feared that the aircraft would bank right and the crew would lose control of the aircraft; the aircraft did not bank after the disengagement of the autopilot. The crew struggled to use the ailerons, which could allow the aircraft to turn. The crew planned to land twenty minutes after the explosion. The flight crew disengaged auto-throttles and resorted to steering via throttle control, reminiscent of United Airlines Flight 232.[1]
The Boeing 747-283B performed an emergency landing in Naha Airport one hour after the bomb exploded. The aircraft's other 272 passengers and 20 crew members survived.
The Okinawa police sent investigators to the crime scene. Upon examining Ikegami's body the forensic pathologist took 94 fragments from Ikegami's buttocks embedded by the blast. The bomb caused Ikegami to sustain internal injuries and blood loss.[1]
[edit] Location of bomb
The seat where the bomb exploded (seat 26K) would normally be above the center wing fuel tank on an older Boeing 747 but on the SAS Version model of 747 the Seat 26K was two seats forward of the tank. If the bomb exploded in a horizontal manner it would have punctured the aircraft skin, causing de-pressurization. Instead the explosion occurred in an vertical manner; Ikegami's body took the brunt of the force, and the bomb severed steel cables, controlling the 747's rudder and elevator, located in the aircraft ceiling. The bomb severed the copilot's control cable for the right aileron.[1]
[edit] The bomb
United States prosecutors said the device was a "Mark II" "microbomb" constructed using Casio digital watches as described in Phase I of The Bojinka Plot 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 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. Other ingredients included glycerin, nitrate, sulfuric acid, and minute concentrations of nitrobenzene, silver azide (silver trinitride), and liquid acetone. 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 Mayday (also known as Air Crash Investigation and Air Emergency) aired an episode about Philippine Airlines Flight 434 called "Bomb on Board."[1]
[edit] References
[edit] See also
- List of terrorist incidents
- List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
- Flying an airplane without control surfaces
[edit] External links
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