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Terror timeline: airport inferno
AS THE green Jeep Cherokee swept through the roundabout at Glasgow Airport and approached the terminal building, its two occupants steeled themselves for an apocalypse. The driver was dressed in a blue boiler suit with black plastic bags tied around his feet. His partner, in the front passenger seat, wore a dirty, grey T-shirt and sand-coloured cargo trousers. It was the first day of the summer holidays, yet these men were not tourists. At 3:15pm on Saturday, on a day when an estimated 35,000 passengers were due to pass through Scotland's busiest airport, the Jeep sped along a road restricted to taxis, suddenly veered right and then, just as swiftly, the driver spun the wheel hard left. The Jeep passed between the protective steel bollards and smashed into the front of the main doors of Terminal 1, scattering stunned passers-by. The vehicle's wheels were jammed under an advertising board and witnesses rushed to assist what they believed to have been an accident. So charitable a notion was quickly corrected by the driver, who, witnesses said, poured out petrol which set the front of the car alight. Climbing out of the car, he was quickly engulfed in flames, yet he still struggled to the boot where several gas canisters are believed to have been stored. As one witness said: "It was amazing how calm he appeared." As the driver, a massive man, described as over 6ft tall with a broad build, struggled with the boot, Stephen Clarkson, an off-duty police officer, snatched up a fire extinguisher and tried to put out the flames. The man turned and is alleged to have screamed: "It's a bomb. It's a bomb." A confused struggle then took place with police officers who arrived and squirted CS spray into the driver's face. Meanwhile, witnesses said the Jeep's passenger tried to run into the terminal with canisters of gas or petrol, before being tackled by security guards, police and members of the public. Airport staff began spraying the car with a fire extinguisher but were forced back when it exploded. At 3:16pm, the two men were dragged out on to the central reservation as the fire alarm began to sound and a mass evacuation of the airport began. As passengers streamed out of the terminal, they passed - and some filmed - the driver, his clothes incinerated and his partially naked body badly burned. One shouted: "Let him burn." The Jeep's passenger, meanwhile, had his hands cuffed behind his back and was led off to a police van. THE airport's major incident planning procedures were swiftly launched. The airport was shut down. Air traffic controllers began contacting flights en route and steered them away to alternative terminals, including Edinburgh, Prestwick and Newcastle. Those planes already queuing on the runway were instructed to wait - a long afternoon and evening had begun. On board, some passengers switched on their mobile phones and downloaded images of the blazing car. The first of 16 fire engines arrived at Glasgow Airport by 3:23pm, followed shortly after wards by a major incident control unit, a large articulated truck from which the work of dozens of staff was co-ordinated. The blazing car had ignited part of the roof of the terminal building, and it and the Jeep were bombarded with thousands of gallons of water from high-pressure hoses. more at link Posted by: Seafarious 2007-07-02 |
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