The Associated Press reports an Air India flight from Toronto back to India via Birmingham, England returned to Toronto an hour into its flight after a passenger found a suspicious package was found in one of the lavatories.
Packages on Air India flights are of particular concern. A bomb exploded on an Air India flight off the coast of Ireland in June of 1985. The plane was heading from Montreal to London. Until September 11, it was the single deadliest terrorist attack involving aircraft. An hour earlier, two baggage handlers at Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan were killed and four others injured when a bomb intended for an Air India flight to Bangkok was prematurely detonated.
The situation in 1985 is indicative of why baggage is supposed to be removed from aircraft if the passenger is not onboard. We can see why the memory of Air India Flight 182 would induce any flight crew member to be suspicious. We hope that airlines, considering the number of suspicious items discovered during flight, will have planes searched before they leave the gate. A search of the lavatories by the flight crew, as well as directing passengers on boarding to search the contents of their seat pockets would probably cut down on this. Perhaps we should take a lesson from Ryanair. Their seats have no pockets.
