Word: crash
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...before had arrived from Vancouver. Two airport workers were killed and four others injured. Less than an hour later, an Air India 747 en route from Toronto plunged into the sea off the Irish coast, and all 329 people aboard were feared dead. Authorities suspected that the otherwise inexplicable crash might have been triggered by a bomb. The international police organization Interpol began an investigation of possible links between the two incidents (see WORLD...
...third worst airline disaster in history, exceeded only by the 1977 collision of KLM and Pan American 747s in the Spanish Canary Islands that killed 582, and the 1974 crash of a Turkish DC-10 near Paris that left 345 dead. More alarmingly, however, the sudden and inexplicable plunge of the Air India craft had the earmarks of terrorism. "It is most likely a bomb," said Mike Ramsden, editor in chief of the aviation magazine Flight International. "A bomb is the most likely reason for a catastrophe, so sudden and complete, to an aircraft with a very fine safety record...
That unsettling possibility gained further credibility as details emerged about an explosion at the Tokyo international airport less than an hour before the Air India crash. As baggage from Canadian Pacific Flight 003 was being unloaded, a bomb suddenly ripped both the door and roof off the freight container, sending clothes and suitcases flying. The explosion killed two airport workers and injured four others. Had the flight not arrived from Vancouver a quarter-hour early, the bomb might have gone off while the 747, which carried 374 passengers and 16 crew members, was over the ocean...
After the Air India plane dropped off radar screens, a full-scale rescue mission was carried out at the scene of the crash. Within half an hour of the plane's disappearance, centers had been set up in Britain and Ireland to coordinate a giant rescue team that included 14 helicopters, four reconnaissance planes and a fleet of more than a dozen military and merchant vessels. By early evening the workers had picked up 144 bodies and airlifted them to Cork, where Irish authorities set up a special mortuary. The possibility of anyone's surviving was remote. One rescue spotter...
...tower operator did his best to refuse permission, but Captain Testrake was adamant: he was running out of fuel, and the terrorists were threatening to kill him. A hijacker may have clinched the argument by shouting, "We are suicide terrorists! If you don't let us land, we will crash the plane into your control tower, or fly it to Baabda and crash into the Presidential Palace!" The tower relented...