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Incendiary device found on Australian plane
A crude incendiary device was loaded into the cargo hold of an Australian Virgin Blue airliner to Sydney in a major breach of airport security, Transport Minister John Anderson says. The device consisted of a cardboard roll stuffed with thermite, which is used in grenades, attached to a fireworks sparkler. It went undetected by security and was loaded at a regional airport in Queensland state on Monday. A baggage handler discovered the device when the flight landed in Sydney and then breached security procedures by taking it into the terminal.Anderson said the incendiary device appeared to have been a hoax and security would have picked up a real bomb. Police and the government were investigating the incident, he said. "At this stage on my advice you are not looking at something that could have potentially blown a plane out of the air having got through security," Anderson told Australian radio on Thursday. "I am relatively confident that if this had been a serious nasty, our security arrangements would have picked it up. The judgment was formed that this was a hoax," he said. David Huttner, a spokesman for Virgin Blue Ltd, said the airline believed a disgruntled airport worker was responsible and probably wanted the device to be found. "It was not something that goes boom, it was something that burns, which means somebody had to be there to light it," he said. "It was clearly placed there by somebody who had access to the airfield because it didn't go through checked baggage." A hoax bomb threat forced a United Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles to return to Sydney in July. The flight was ordered to return when flight staff discovered the letters "B O B" -- possibly meaning "bomb on board" -- scrawled on a sick bag in an aircraft toilet. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-09-23 |
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