Flight 253 was just 20 minutes from landing in Detroit when passengers say they heard sounds like fire crackers going off around them and began to smell the acrid tang of smoke.

Immediately, at least one person on the Northwest Airlines flight that had left Amsterdam earlier that day, climbed over others, crossed the aisle and attempted to restrain the lone passenger whose legs were on fire.

Crew, including eight flight attendants and three pilots, are said to have used a fire extinguisher as well as water to quench the flames engulfing the legs of the bomber, identified as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab.

“It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase,” said Peter Smith, a traveller from the Netherlands. “First there was a pop, and then [there] was smoke.”

Mr Smith said a passenger sitting opposite the man frantically climbed over people to restrain him. Syed Jafri, another passenger, said he saw a glow and also smelled smoke. Then, he said, “a young man behind me jumped on him”.

“Next thing you know, there was a lot of panic,” added Mr Jafri.

It says much about the post-September 11 consciousness of air travellers that his fellow passengers tackled the Nigerian as soon as it became apparent something was amiss.

Passengers reported seeing the arrested man taken to the front of the plane with his trousers cut off and his legs burned. Police said the burns indicated the explosive had been strapped to his thighs.

One US intelligence official said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid, which failed when Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate it.

Passengers arriving in Detroit following the failed attempt said they believed the flight would not make it in to land.

Northwest Airline passenger Richelle Keepman said: “I thought -- I think we all thought -- we weren’t going to land, we weren’t going to make it.”

Another passenger, Melinda Dennis, spoke of the man being severely burned.

“His entire leg was burned,” she said. “They required a fire extinguisher as well as water to put it out.

“You could smell the smoke when we landed. You could smell the scent of something being burned when we landed.”

Last night, Abdulmutallab was being held and treated in hospital while undergoing questioning by intelligence officials.

Flight 253 began in Nigeria and went through Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, en route to Detroit.

Schiphol, one of Europe’s busiest airports which deals with many transit passengers from Africa and Asia to North America, strictly enforces European security regulations including only allowing 100ml or less of liquid in hand luggage placed inside clear plastic bags.

Schiphol airport authorities in Amsterdam declined to comment about security procedures at the airport but insisted the EU standards for travel are strictly maintained.

Federal aviation administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the flight until it was on its final approach to Detroit and the pilot declared an emergency.

The incident has echoes of British “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, who is serving a life sentence for attempting to destroy a 2001 transatlantic flight with explosives

The FBI and the homeland security department issued an intelligence note on November 20 about the potential threat for the holiday season although officials said they had no specific information about plans for an attack by al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

In 2003, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden posted a recording on the internet calling on Muslims in oil-rich Nigeria to rise up against one of the “regimes who are slaves of America”.

Links to al-Qaeda remain rare in the African country, though security forces said they had broken up a linked terror cell in November 2007.

However, security at Nigeria’s two major international airports in the capital, Abuja, and Lagos remain a point of concern.

Police officers are busy keeping vendors and taxi drivers out of the airport. Bags are passed quickly through x-ray scanners and security guards watching incoming passengers do not routinely check for explosive residue on passengers’ hand luggage or shoes.

However, at the gate, airline workers check passengers a second time with hand-held metal detectors.

 

Airports: Security Heightened

  By Paul Hutcheon

 

European airports face a security crackdown following a failed bombing attempt. US authorities carried out far-reaching reforms to airport security after the 9/11 attacks, and President Obama is now likely to call for a similar review of US-bound flights.

However, the incident has already prompted airports and airlines across Europe to tighten security on flights to America.

Authorities in the UK, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have increased passenger checks or reinforced security measures already stepped up ahead of the Christmas and New Year period.

British airports group BAA, which manages Heathrow -- Europe’s busiest airport in passenger numbers -- said airlines had strengthened security and travellers should expect delays during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

“Passengers travelling to the United States should expect their airline to carry out additional security checks prior to boarding,” the company said in a statement.

British Airways, which operates dozens of flights to the United States daily, said passengers would be subject to baggage restrictions in order to process tighter security.

“For all customers departing on a flight from Heathrow or Gatwick to the US only one item of hand luggage is allowed,” the airline said. “Customers travelling to other destinations outside the United States are not affected.”

A spokesman for Aeroports de Paris said the US transport authority had specifically asked airports to search passenger luggage more thoroughly and to carry out extra pat-down searches of passengers before they boarded flights to America.

In Rome, home to Europe’s sixth busiest airport, civil aviation authority ENAC confirmed it had ordered security for all flights bound for the United States to be beefed up.

In Madrid, passengers were being held in a “sterile zone” and were being told to check in as much of their luggage as possible to reduce carry-on baggage.　

Germany’s interior ministry said it would keep security measures under review. “As always, we assume a very high danger for Germany, but the incident in America has not changed the security situation,” a spokeswoman said. “We are reviewing at the moment whether we will selectively raise our standards.”

The measures follow a formal request from the US Department of Transportation to airports worldwide to ratchet up security following the failed Christmas Day attack.

However, airports will be keen to avoid draconian crackdowns on security by quickly finding out how the suspect Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab managed to take an explosive device on to the plane.

The investigation will inevitably focus on items of hand luggage that could evade a metal detector.

Abdulmutallab, who was travelling to Detroit, had boarded in Lagos, Nigeria, and passed through security checks at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport while in transit. The Dutch counter-terrorism agency NCTb said the Nigerian “went through a security check on Schiphol and (the) security procedure has been handled as it should be”.

It added that the level of security procedures at Schiphol airport had since been heightened.

 

 

The London Connection: Police swoop on flat

  By Helen McArdle

 

The man suspected of attempting to blow up the transatlantic jet on Christmas Day is believed to be a former student of mechanical engineering at a London university.

Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, a

23-year-old Nigerian, is thought to have spent just under three years studying at University College London using the name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, between September 2005 and June 2008.

The suspect is also said to be the son of a prominent Nigerian banker.

The university confirmed it did have a student enrolled on its mechanical engineering course during that period, using the first name Umar, although a spokesman was keen to underline they may not be the same person.

He said: “It must be stressed that the university has no evidence this is the same person currently being referred to in the media.”

Meanwhile, a senior Nigerian banker was meeting security officials in the country’s capital, Abuja, last night amid suspicions that his son is the suspect.

Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a former minister and chairman of First Bank in Nigeria, confirmed to authorities that his 23-year-old son had left London, where he was a student, to travel, although he did not know where he had gone.

Mr Mutallab said: “I believe he might have been to Yemen, but we are investigating to determine that.”

The father and several other relatives were listed as living at Flat 16, Mansfield Street, the London residence now at the centre of the police investigation -- last night, there was a fairly low-key police operation under way at the basement flat near upmarket Harley street, which is the last known address of Umar Abdulmutallab.

Flats in the property typically sell for between £1.5m and £2.5m, prompting local residents and investigators to question how a student could afford to live in such an exclusive location.

Forensic officers were going in and out of the building yesterday in a bid to gather any evidence that could prove the dual identity of Abdul and Umar Abdulmutallab, as well as any materials or documents charting his alleged transition from scholar to terrorist.

The Dutch counter-terrorism agency NCTb say the alleged Christmas Day bomber boarded a KLM flight from Lagos to Amsterdam, then connected to a flight to Detroit.

A preliminary investigation found security procedures were followed correctly, and Abdulmutallab, who has suffered third-degree burns to his legs after chemicals taped to his lower limbs caught fire, did possess a valid US visa.

According to officials and fellow travellers, Abdulmutallab claimed to be acting on orders from al-Qaeda to blow up the airliner.

The latest alert comes within days of the 21st anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, and further cements an association between Islamic terrorism in the 21st century and the use of aircraft as high-impact targets, epitomised most spectacularly by the attacks of 9/11 and reiterated in a number of other failed attempts throughout the decade. In 2001, “shoe” bomber Richard Reid tried to blow up a Paris-Miami flight with 197 people on board using explosives hidden in his shoes. In 2006 UK police disrupted planned attacks on transatlantic flights which were to use liquid bombs disguised as soft drinks to bring about near simultaneous explosions of planes across the globe.

Professor Paul Wilkinson, a terrorism specialist formerly based at the University of St Andrews, said yesterday that the evidence surrounding Abdulmutallab drew “obvious parallels” with Reid. He said: “On the strength of the evidence I have seen, there is nothing to suggest this suspect was particularly advanced.

“If this was al-Qaeda related, he was probably given some instruction or device and told to take the chance when he could. AQ’s modus operandi is that it operates on all sorts of different levels.

“This particular case reminds me of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. The fact he has managed to get his leg on fire after getting through security is surprising.

“Big questions will have to be asked about airport security, if this was a sophisticated device, but as it stands I think this was more likely to be opportunist.”

Dr John Gearson, a reader in terrorism studies at King’s College, London, said it was crucial to determine whether the suspect acted alone or was part of “a transnational organisation like al-Qaeda”.

He said: “It seems this individual might have been supported by groups or individuals in the Yemen where we know some of these organisations have finances available. It’s not necessarily that difficult to fund this once you’ve got the individual concerned and the materials.”

Meanwhile, intelligence officials in Yemen said they were probing claims the man picked up the explosive device and instructions on how to use it in that country.

It is also understood that British authorities were alerted to a possible UK link to a current terror threat on Thursday evening, 24 hours before the foiled attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit.