The images were achingly familiar. Shattered bodies amidst the debris and numbed relatives unable to accept the ultimate reality of the tragedy - a home and a family destroyed in one incomprehensible moment of madness. But to a nation - and a world - increasingly accustomed to such images, last fortnight's mid-air disaster involving an Air-India Jumbo - the third worst in aviation history and the biggest over water - stretched beyond the expanded limits of human tolerance. In the agonising hours and days after Air-India's Boeing 747 Kanishka plunged into a watery cemetery off the Irish coast in the early hours of Sunday, June 23, with 329 passengers on board, the sorrow and despair was replaced by shock, horror and outrage. Shock at the twisted logic of the saboteurs who, in all likelihood, blew up the aircraft in mid-flight.
Horror at the tragic and poignant electronic images that flickered across millions of television screens all over the world - a child's bedraggled teddy bear and a patchwork cabbage doll fished out from the sea to be laid reverentially among the body bags. Outrage at the depraved choice of the target - a Jumbo airliner with 329 innocent men, women and children on board. Till last week, only 131 bodies had been recovered and rescue teams had virtually abandoned hope of finding any more.
But ultimately, the most powerful emotions that emerged were the silent screams of impotence: the frustration of facing a phantom foe capable of wreaking such terrible devastation and with such apparent impunity. Though the team of international investigators including the four-man Indian team, gathered in Cork, the Irish port city nearest to the crash site 100 miles off the Irish coast, were reluctant to take a definite stand on the probable cause of the crash, the evidence collected so far, scarce though it necessarily was, pointed overwhelmingly to a mid-air explosion. In New York, in the hours following the disaster, three separate groups called up newspaper offices to "take credit" for the crash. The three were the so-called Dashmesh Regiment, the All-India Sikh Students Federation and the Kashmir Liberation Army. Though investigating agencies discounted the claims, the evidence that the crash was the result of a mid-air blast started piling up.
The circumstances of the disaster offered the initial clues. Air-India flight 182 was on a routine flight from Toronto to Bombay via Montreal, Heathrow and Delhi. A majority of the passengers were Canadian citizens of Indian origin coming to India for a holiday, many for the first time after settling in Canada. A large number, 45, were Air-India personnel or relatives of Air-India staff returning after holidaying. At 0809 GMT, AI 182 appeared on the radar screen at the Shannon airport control tower as a routine blip. It was on its programmed flight path from Montreal heading for a refuelling stop at London's Heathrow airport. The Shannon air controller recorded the time the flight entered Irish air space and gave the aircraft its position and heading. Everything seemed normal except for the fact that the aircraft was flying more than an hour behind scheduled had been due to land at Heathrow at 0745 GMT.
At 0813, the blip that represented flight 182 suddenly disappeared from the radar screen. "One second it was there, and the next it was gone," said the controller. Added Chief Air Controller Hugh O'Connor: "As soon as it vanished from the screen, an immediate effort was made to contact the aircraft. But there was nothing but silence."
It was the silence of the grave. By the time the first ship, the container vessel Laurential Forest, arrived at the aircraft's last known position, all that remained of the Boeing were bits of the tail and the undercarriage floating in the sea. The ship's captain, Roddy McDougall, radioed Shannon and informed them that bodies, uninflated life-jackets and lifeboats could be seen. For the next three days, the huge, combined rescue operation launched from Cork went about their gruesome task of winching up a steadily-decreasing number of bodies. Said Flight Lt Rodney Cox of the Royal Navy: "It was the sort of scene I have never come across before and never want to see again." Of the 131 bodies recovered, the majority were women, many of them pregnant. "There were at least 20 pregnant women among the bodies picked up so far" said Dr. S. Ali, a Pakistani doctor employed in Cork Regional Hospital. "All the bodies we saw had injuries or lacerations on the face, arms and legs." According to another doctor on the team, such injuries are consistent with sudden decompression in aircraft. There were also 34 children out of the 70 that had been on board. In one instance, a Royal Navy helicopter crew winched up what it thought was a child, only to discover that it was a child's doll.
But beyond the immediate scenes of poignancy was the equally instant suspicion that the tragedy was most probably the result of an explosion. The aircraft was cruising at 31,000 ft and the abrupt and instantaneous manner in which the aircraft disappeared from Shannon radar screens would suggest that it broke up in the air. The only other possible reason - a major technical fault like sudden engine or structural failure or intense turbulence - does not fit the facts. For one, there was no report of bad weather in AI 182's flight area. Secondly, even if all four engines failed simultaneously - an eventuality beyond the laws of all probability - the aircraft would have glided for at least a mile before coming down. This would have not only registered on the radar screens at Shannon and nearby military bases, but also given the pilot ample time to radio a Mayday signal. Further, the 747 is one of the safest aircraft ever designed and is capable of flying on one engine even if the other three fail.
The possibility of structural failure is also a remote one according to aviation experts. "Structural stress cannot be entirely ruled out but it would be very surprising in an aircraft that was only seven years old and with only 23,000 hours flying time and especially in a plane such as the 747. Air-India also has a maintenance record that it can be proud of," says David Learmont, air transport editor of the highly-rated aviation magazine, Flight International and a former RAF pilot. To buttress the reliability and stress-resistance of the 747, Learmont refers to the China Airlines 747 that turned upside down in February this year because of a twisted tail, nosedived 30,000 ft, righted itself and landed safely in the US. "This is the kind of stress that a 747 can withstand," says Learmont, adding: "We think the bomb theory is the most likely because it answers all the questions in this particular case." Captain Peter Delaney, air safety officer for Aer Lingus, the Irish national airline, agrees. "The whole situation screams out that it was a bomb. The Boeing is a highly safe aircraft and structural failure is unlikely. There is a Boeing taking off and landing every two minutes of the day and they have been doing so for the last 15 years."
In Cork, investigating experts were also concentrating on the theory that an explosion could have taken place in the tail of the plane which would have dislocated the control wires. If that happened, the aircraft would somersault and break up, giving the pilot no time to activate the distress signal or take any other action. Air-India officials are also convinced that the crash was instantaneous and must have been in the form of a midair explosion. The flight commander, Captain H.S. Narendra, 57, a cheerful extrovert, was one of the top five pilots in the airline. He had joined Air-India in 1951 and had logged 20,200 flying hours. "It is unthinkable that Narendra would not have taken instant action had he even the smallest amount of time in which to react," says a fellow pilot. The copilot, Captain S.S. Bhinder, 42, had logged a total of 7,400 hours after joining the airline from the Indian Air Force. The flight engineer, D.D. Dumasia, 58, had been with Air India for 31 years and had logged 14,400 hours. "Between them, they had 42,000 hours of flying experience and it is inconceivable that they would not have taken every possible action to save the aircraft had there been an opportunity to do so," says a senior Air-India official.
There is universal agreement on the fact that the 747 is one of the most airworthy aircraft in the sky. "You can never have a system that is totally unfunctional. There are back-ups for every conceivable failure," says a 747 pilot. Emergency procedures are drilled into every pilot and they cannot get their certificates unless they train to operate the aircraft on two engines.
About the only thing the aircraft is vulnerable to is a bomb and security manuals given to all crew list the likely accessible places where a bomb can be hidden. These are: the baggage hold which is the first and easiest receptacle in terms of accessibility; the massive wheel well, designed to hold 16 aircraft wheels; the nose wheel pod located under the pilot's flight deck; the fifth engine pod in the left wing which is designed to hold a spare engine; or an engine being carried back for repairs as was the case with 182 which was carrying an engine which had failed in Canada and was being brought back to Bombay for repairs.
Most aviation experts, however, go for the bomb-in-the-tail theory. This would have totally disabled the aircraft's control surfaces which meant the pilot would have no time to react and would also explain flight 182's sudden disappearance from the radar screen. They are also agreed that the explosion would have to be an extremely powerful one to either blow the aircraft out of the sky or cause massive and instant decompression which would have produced virtually the same effect. At 31,000 ft, the aircraft would have been in the words of a 747 pilot "like a blown-up balloon". The temperature outside the aircraft would be 45 degrees Celsius while the cabin temperature would have been around 20 degrees Celsius. The impact of a sudden drop of nearly 70 degrees, as would happen in the case of a bomb explosion, would have meant instant death.
In any event, the condition of the bodies found also suggests an explosion of some sort. Though no burn or scorch marks have been discovered so far on the bodies recovered, aviation experts are convinced that these were from the front part of the aircraft and thus removed from the blast. But many of the bodies also had their clothes partly or almost fully removed which is what would happen in the case of an explosion anywhere on board. "If the plane crashed on the water and then disintegrated, most of the passengers would have their clothes intact," says one of the investigating officers at Cork. Captain B.K. Bhasin, director, safety, Indian Airlines and one of the four senior Indian officials in Cork, also tends to support the bomb theory. "Most of the chairs, cushions and wreckage appear to have landed on the water intact. If the plane hit the water and then disintegrated, they would have been twisted. We are almost certain that the aircraft broke up in the air."
There is also the fact that the wreckage of the aircraft was spread out over a five-mile radius, again suggestive of a major explosion. The fact that uninflated lifeboats and life-jackets were found would also support the theory that the passengers had no warning of impending disaster nor had the time to react. Finally, there is the statement by Esteban Fraile, the captain of a Panamanian container ship, who reported that he had seen an aircraft explode in the air and plunge into the sea off southern Ireland. Fraile stated that the explosion seemed to occur in the rear section of the aircraft and it turned two complete somersaults before breaking up.
But what seems to really confirm the bomb theory is the explosion that occurred almost simultaneously at Tokyo's Narita airport killing two baggage handlers and injuring four others. Investigators have established that the explosion was the result of a bomb planted in baggage that was unloaded from Canadian Pacific flight 003 that originated from Toronto en route to Tokyo via Vancouver. The explosion took place when the baggage from flight 003 was in the process of being transferred by container to a waiting Air-India aircraft bound for Bombay. Japanese investigators are now convinced that the bomb was meant to explode on the Air-India flight but detonated prematurely. The Canadian flight had, in fact, landed ahead of schedule but even that had a large number of Indians among the 300-odd passengers on board catching the connecting Air-India flight to Bombay. But Canadian investigations have focused on the reasonable certainty that the bomb was meant for the Air-India flight and that it is, in fact, linked to the Air-India crash off the Irish coast.
Canadian authorities last week launched a massive manhunt for two men suspected of being responsible for the two incidents. The two men are L. Singh and A. Singh. The former was listed on the passenger manifest of the Canadian aircraft while A. Singh was booked on flight AI 182 from Toronto to Delhi via London. The similarity in the probable sequence of events has led investigators to believe that the suspects followed exactly the same strategy in both cases. The two men arrived separately in Toronto from Vancouver on local domestic flights where they boarded the two aircraft, one bound for London and the other for Tokyo. L. Singh had booked passage from Toronto to Bombay via Tokyo on flight 003.
However, he left the aircraft at the next stop, Vancouver, leaving his luggage behind tagged for the connecting Bombay flight. A similar pattern was followed by A. Singh, who boarded (light AI 182 at Toronto. His ticket and luggage were booked through to New Delhi. Again, subsequent investigations by Canadian authorities established that he too disembarked from the aircraft at the next stop, in this case Montreal, leaving his luggage behind. Air-India officials in New Delhi, however, claim that no 'A. Singh' was listed on the passenger manifest of flight 182 though they admit that there were over 20 passengers with that surname on board the flight and in many cases families travelling together are merely listed in manifests as 'Mr Singh' or 'Miss Singh'. But in Tokyo last week, investigators announced that fingerprints lifted from the remains of the exploded baggage matched those of Lal Singh's on FBI files.
The two men being sought, both clean-shaven Sikhs, are believed to be Lal Singh and Ammand Singh, the two extremists who escaped the FBI dragnet recently in the US in connection with the plot to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi and Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal during their visits to America. Both men received extensive training earlier this year in explosives at a private mercenary training camp in Alabama in the US. The man who owns and runs the camp, Frank Camper, told authorities that the two men had been trained there along with two other Sikh terrorists with the specific intention of blowing up selected targets in India and Indian targets in the US. Camper said he was paid US$ 10,000 plus a retainer fee to produce a blueprint and a manual for terrorist strikes in India and abroad. The money, he said, had been paid by an international Sikh network. Camper has handed over the manuals and the blueprint, which detail possible targets and the methods to be used, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
What seems obvious is that the two men took advantage of a serious loophole in airline security procedures where many international airlines fail to ensure that all passengers in transit board the aircraft again. Though Air-India claims that it always takes a headcount after each transit stop, this is usually cursory, especially if the flight is running behind schedule. Even Air-India's Chief Security Officer, A. Vardharajan, currently coordinating the investigations in the US and Canada, confirmed in a report from Washington that the suspected terrorist, A. Singh, did board the flight at Toronto and alighted at Montreal.
There were, tragically, other security breaches that could have made the reprehensible job of the terrorists that much easier. For their Canadian operations, Air-India has an arrangement with a local security firm. Burns Security. Burns is in overall charge of all Air-India airport security "over and above the security arrangements handled by the Canadian police" at both Montreal and Toronto airports. Burns is a reputed firm that also performs the same service for some other airlines operating in Canada. According to the arrangement, Burns is responsible for frisking of passengers as well as checking of baggage. They were in charge of the X-ray machine meant for examining baggage that developed a possibly fatal failure after three-fourths of the baggage for flight 182 had been checked. Air-India claims that after the X-ray machine failed, they used a PD-4, a less effective security "sniffer" that is programmed to detect vapour from explosives, as well as physical search of the remaining luggage.
However, reports from Toronto indicate that the physical checks were random and that the PD-4 is not a foolproof machine. There is also the fact that the flight was running 90 minutes late and airline officials were in a hurry to speed things along. The reason for the delay itself is suggestive. All baggage at the airport is subjected to a check by sniffer dogs specially trained to detect explosives. In the case of Flight 182, the dogs went berserk while sniffing the baggage. Three bags that the dogs seemed specially sensitive to were removed and put in a 'sterile area' for later examination. Nothing, however, was found in those particular bags but it is possible that the explosive was in another bag that the dogs missed. But Canadian officials blame Air-India for the security lapse. Robert Beaudette, superintendent of airport security at Montreal, said Air-India violated security rules when it failed to inform them about the three suspicious bags removed from the doomed flight. "The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) were notified just before the plane's departure. By the time they got to the baggage, the aircraft had left."
Canadian and Indian experts are also investigating the possible effect of an extra engine that was mounted on the right wing of the aircraft. The engine was being taken back to Bombay for repairs and was strapped to a special pod located between the fuselage and the closest engine. According to Jack Gamble, a Boeing company spokesman, the ferrying of extra engines is a routine affair and the aircraft is in fact designed for such an operation which is employed by almost all international airlines. The 800-kg engine, according to one remote possibility, could have caused the wing to shear off. Aviation experts, however, dismiss this as unlikely since the engine was strapped on just before the plane left Toronto and the crash took place before the aircraft was due to land at Heathrow, almost 15 hours later. If the wing was weak, they say, the engine weight would have caused it to shear off much earlier. The other theory concerning the engine is that it could possibly have been used as a receptacle for the bomb itself. According to Gamble, a bomb in the extra engine would have blown the wing off and severely damaged the fuselage. Investigators, however, say that it seems unlikely that the bomb was placed in the wing of the aircraft going by the evidence and the way in which the crash most probably occurred.
Investigating authorities, however, are certain that the likely explosion on board AI 182 would have required a very powerful explosive charge to do the damage it did and give the crew absolutely no chance to react. The 747 is one of the largest aircraft in operation and a minor explosion in the rear would not have resulted in instant disaster because of the sheer size of the aircraft. "Judging by the circumstances of the crash, it would have to be an explosive of at least two kilogrammes in weight," said a British explosives expert. An explosion of that force would blow a fairly large hole in the fuselage, leading to instant and deadly decompression and, if in the tail section, an immediate failure of the control cables.
If, as is most likely, plastic explosive was used, a normal X-ray scan could easily miss it since it is soft and malleable and can be stretched into any shape. X-ray machines are capable of detecting metal or isolating suspicious objects in a suitcase because of the bulk and general outline of the object. The massive blast that ripped through Meenambakam airport at Madras last August killing 28 people and destroying a large portion of the terminal was caused by plastic explosive packed in two suitcases that passed scanners at Colombo airport where it was loaded.
The definitive finding regarding the possible cause of the crash, the type of explosive used if it was indeed an act of sabotage, and its location, will, however, depend largely on whether or not the crucial black box, the cockpit voice recorder which automatically records conversations on the flight deck, and the flight recorder which records technical details of the flight, can be recovered from the seabed where a major portion of the aircraft is also believed to have lodged. The main section of the plane is believed to be resting on a shelf at a depth of 6,000 ft, far in excess of the depths to which divers or conventional salvage gear are capable of descending. So far, the rescue teams have only recovered bits and pieces of the wreckage amounting to barely 2 per cent of the total aircraft, including one of the doors and part of a wing. Last week, the HMS Challenger, a Royal Navy seabed operation vehicle equipped with sophisticated sonar equipment, managed to locate what appears to be the bulk of the aircraft and also intercepted the beacon signals emitted by the black box.
But mere location will solve only part of the problem. The main concern is that it will require highly sophisticated salvage vessels, available only in the US and Canada, to actually recover the remains of the aircraft along with the black box. A spokesman for the investigating team, which includes Indian, Irish, Canadian and American experts, said that it was not clear whether the wreckage had settled on firm ground or had sunk into mud on the seabed. "If it's in deep mud, it could take us a long time to get it up to the top. It could in fact be sinking deeper all the time." said one. In fact, according to the investigators, the beacon signal picked up by the Challenger was "weak and intermittent" and though capable of sending signals for 30 days after immersion in the sea, a covering of mud and the depth at which it is, will make its recovery a daunting task since the signal will get weaker as the hours and days go by.
Till then, the investigating team will have little to go by except the state of the bodies and the wreckage recovered so far. Under Annexure 13 of the Chicago Convention on Air Traffic Control, the responsibility of the investigation rests with the country of registry of the aircraft, in this case, India. The US is part of the team as manufacturers of the aircraft and Canada as the country of origin of the flight. "At this stage, we are not in a position to disclose anything. We can only do so after probing all aspects and piecing together all the available evidence," says Dr S.S. Sidhu, secretary in the Ministry of Aviation who is part of the four-man Indian team. However, according to Flight International's Learmont, the investigation is taking much longer than it should. "I think this is because India is not particularly experienced in investigations of this nature and also because of bureaucratic delays arising out of the team having to constantly refer to Delhi."
As in most tragedies of this nature, there is always a positive side, in this case more than one. The alacrity with which US and Canadian authorities have responded to the tragedy, and the offers of all assistance in the probe and recovery operations, indicates that the fate of AI 182 has finally brought home to the respective governments the seriousness of the terrorist threat from Sikh extremists based in their countries. Canada has launched one of the most extensive investigations ever in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto and sleuths have even been sent to Delhi to collect details of suspected terrorists in Canada and their activities from their Indian counterparts. Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulrooney has ordered a high level review of security procedures at Canadian airports and the installation of more sophisticated machines at all airports in the country to check baggage on overseas flights.
But even that is, in a sense, closing the barn door after the damage has been done. The Indian Government has long suspected that the centre of Sikh extremist operations abroad had shifted from the US to Canada. Indian Government sources say that they were even in possession of proof in the form of clandestinely-taken photographs showing "Khalistan Army" recruits in uniform undergoing training in British Columbia. The photographs, they say, were turned over to the Canadian Government.
Other Indian intelligence reports from Canada had warned of the growing threat, especially after Operation Blue-star and had specifically mentioned the likelihood of sabotage attempts. In recent meetings of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal had been singled out as specially sensitive areas. All such information, say Indian Government sources, had been relayed to the Canadian authorities who largely ignored the warnings and did not crack down on the activities of Sikh extremists. "All the indications were there. Short of screaming ourselves hoarse we had done everything," says a senior intelligence official.
The reports had also detailed the disquieting and increasing anti-Indian incidents in Canada which included an attack on Acting Indian High Commissioner, K.P. Fabian; the storming of the residence of the Indian Consul General in Vancouver by militant Sikhs; repeated attempts by Khalistanis to disturb meetings addressed by representatives of the Indian High Commission in Canada.
The Indian Government had also prepared reports regarding the openly separatist activities of groups like the Babbar Khalsa, reportedly the most fanatic and the most active, and the Dashmesh Regiment in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. The Indian Government had also supplied Canadian authorities with a list of extremists wanted for murder and other terrorist crimes who were hiding out in Canada. The most prominent example is Talwinder Singh, head of the Babbar Khalsa in Canada. He is wanted for murder and armed robbery in India and the Government has sent repeated requests for his extradition without receiving any encouragement. Talwinder's wife, incidentally, has been attending the trial of the Sikh hijackers of an Indian Airlines aircraft in Pakistan.
Last March, two terrorists were apprehended trying to smuggle in parts of an Uzi machine-gun to London from Canada. One was arrested in Canada with one half of a machine-gun while the other, who had already boarded the flight, was arrested on arrival in London with the other half of the gun and sent back to Canada. Under interrogation. They confessed that they had planned to assassinate Indian diplomats based in Britain. "After the Air-India incident, I think we are going to see a major change in the attitude of the Canadian authorities," says an Indian intelligence official.
In the case of Air-India, there were ample warnings that an incident like the one that destroyed flight 182 was likely. Air-India officials admit that threats to aircraft in the form of hijacks or sabotage came with increasing frequency after Operation Bluestar. They also admit, however, that security procedures remained much the same: the baggage scanned and sent to the aircraft, the hand baggage searched and the passengers frisked. "All that does not amount to much since even the X-ray can only detect ferrous substances and not something like a plastic explosive." Apart from that there are any number of poorly-paid people working at an airport or around an aircraft when it is being serviced who can be bribed to smuggle objects on board.
In the wake of the latest disaster, the biggest in the airline's history, Air-India has introduced a series of measures designed to beef up security. These include all Air-India aircraft will undergo stringent anti-sabotage checks which include removal of panels, and will be kept in a 'sterile status' under guard on the tarmac for a specified period before the flight; no foodstuffs or vegetables will be allowed on board aircraft unless it is subjected to X-ray tests; the 'cooling period' for cargo extended from 24 to 48 hours; more stringent checks on high-lift trucks that carry food to the aircraft; the import of portable walk-through metal detectors; and the introduction of a guard at the baggage make-up area - the area where it is loaded onto the containers for transport to the aircraft - and another guard at the aircraft to check the baggage being loaded on board. Air-India officials know only too well what all this will mean in terms of flight delays and inconvenience to passengers. But as one pilot says: "I'd rather arrive five hours late than not at all." In the three days after the crash of flight 182, Air-India has received six bomb threats and they are not expecting any reduction in that average in the near future. Meanwhile, Indian intelligence agencies have warned that the threat of similar sabotage of Indian aircraft, especially outside the country, has increased rather than receded and "extreme vigilance" will be required to combat the danger. In that context, the tragedy has not yet ended and in fact, may have just begun.
—With Bonny Mukherjee in Cork, Suresh Jain in Toronto, Raju Santhanam in New Delhi and Jagannath Dubashi in Bombay
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