India: Explosive Device Found on Airliner
India: Explosive Device Found on Airliner
An explosive device was discovered aboard an airliner in India March 21, but the device’s crude design meant it posed no immediate threat to the flight and is unlikely to be part of recent al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba threats to hijack flights in India.
A crude explosive device was found aboard a turbo-prop plane operated by Kingfisher Airlines (Flight IT-4731) in the town of Thiruvananthapuram in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The flight from Bangalore had landed at approximately 8 a.m. March 21. Shortly after it landed and the passengers had deplaned, a member of either the Central Industrial Security Force or a member of the maintenance crew (reports have varied) discovered an unusual object in the cargo hold of the plane.
An explosive ordnance team was called to the scene and secured the object. Police have said the device consisted of approximately 20 grams of sulfur, potassium chlorate and aluminum powder (a mixture called flash powder often used in fireworks) wrapped in several sheets of newspapers dated March 13 and bound by coir rope — a common, homemade material in India made out of natural materials such as coconut fiber. No initiator was found attached to the mixture of powder. The entire object was about 9 inches in diameter, about the size of a baseball.
It is unclear at this point who placed the suspicious object there or what his or her motivation was. Given that there was no indication of an initiator attached to the object to provide a spark to ignite the mixture, it was unlikely to detonate as it was, meaning the flight does not appear to have been in immediate danger. The lack of an initiator would also make this device more difficult to notice. Many timed or remote initiators would employ metallic materials such as switches and wires that would be relatively easy to detect by security officials in Bangalore. The device was accessible to passengers in the cabin, however, so it is possible that someone on the flight could have ignited it with a lighter or match.
Certainly, the flash powder contained in the device was volatile, but it is more likely this device would have caused a small fire rather than a violent explosion. Pressure is required to produce significant explosions involving low-explosive mixtures such as the flash powder found on the Kingfisher flight. Often, amateur bombmakers will place their devices in pressure cookers or metal pipes to add more power — even firecrackers are wrapped tightly in cardboard to create a bang. But wrapping this material in flimsy newspaper would allow the outside to burn if ignited, allowing the gases to escape slowly rather than building up pressure to explode. Fire on board an aircraft is still certainly a threat, especially with respect to smoke inhalation, meaning this incident cannot simply be dismissed, but unlike violent explosions that can instantly incapacitate an aircraft, fires are more controllable.
State law enforcement officials are investigating the incident to determine who put the device on the plane and if it was put there maliciously. India’s aviation sector has been on high alert since Jan. 22, when Indian government authorities received intelligence that al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba were plotting to hijack Indian operated flights to other south Asian countries. Considering this device did not pose an immediate threat and the flight it was found on was relatively small and domestic, it is unlikely that this was part of any serious terrorist threat. The elements of the incident do not match with the more professional tradecraft evident in past al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba attacks in India.
