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Flight 63 crew debrief video doesn't reveal bomb's placement
The attempt of a would-be terrorist to ignite a bomb concealed in his athletic shoes was much closer to succeeding than generally realized. The flight crew's extreme apprehension was fully justified.
Additional details of the Dec. 22, 2001, incident aboard American Airlines (AMR) Flight 63 indicate that had "shoe bomber" Richard Reid attempted to ignite the bomb with a smokeless, odorless butane lighter, rather than the matches which called attention to his intentions, the B767-300 might well have been blown out of the sky and, if not, lives most certainly would have been lost in an aircraft heavily damaged by the bomb's explosion.
The flight crew's account, contained in a videotaped debriefing of the event, tells much of the story, but not all of it (see ASW, July 22).
According to sources, Reid moved to a window seat when the assigned occupant went to the lavatory. He took off his right shoe and wedged it between the armrest and the cabin wall. Had he known enough to slit the end of the safety fuse, the bomb probably would have ignited even though it was damp. Had Reid used a butane lighter, there would have been no match odor to attract attention to a burning smell. It was this suspicious smell that prompted flight attendants to focus on a possible cabin fire in the area in which Reid was seated, and the subsequent commotion to intercede in his attempt to ignite the shoe.
Placed as close as possible to the outer aluminum skin of the pressurized fuselage, the bomb likely would have blown a substantial hole in the side of the airplane, possibly recreating the grim scenario in which a bomb placed close to the skin destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. Regulatory officials are looking at various means of hardening belly holds and overhead bins, but the skin area between bins and belly likely will remain vulnerable. Separation of flight critical systems also might not prevent loss of an aircraft from a bomb placed next to the skin just below the window line, as was the case on Flight 63 (see ASW, July 29).
Links to earlier attack
The Reid shoe bomb featured the...