Toronto: A-I flight package was carefully packed tools

The suspicious looking package on the washroom floor of Air-India flight 188 bound on Monday for Birmingham-Amritsar-New Delhi was just carefully packaged tools, Peel Regional Police have revealed.

The package, first noticed by a passenger who alerted the crew, forced the Boeing 777 jet to return to Pearson International Airport in Toronto, after 90 minutes of take off and then the long ordeal of 149 passengers and 11 crew members began.

The plane was taken from Terminal 3 runway to an isolated area on the tarmac where passengers were questioned by the police with the principal witness being the passenger who first noticed the package in the washroom. Authorities have not revealed his name.

The Peel Police used a robot to detonate the suspicious looking package and subsequently analysed debris. "We are literally picking up the pieces that are left after the package was blown up," said Peel Police Constable Peter Brandwood. "The way today's climate is with air travel, there is heightened awareness for passenger security."

After passengers were kept waiting for 12 hours in a secure building, details of which have not been released despite repeated enquiries by rediff.com, they were each given vouchers for a hotel and $15 for meals. The flight finally left Toronto airport at 7 pm on Tuesday for Birmingham.

All kinds of  negative comments have appeared in mainstream newspapers about this incident, but Air-India staff in Toronto haven't so far said a word.

This reporter was kept waiting on Tuesday for over 2 hours outside the Air-India office at the airport, but the Air-India staff wouldn't even reveal where passengers were kept waiting.

Scott Armstrong of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority reportedly said passengers had been kept in a secure building away from the airport's three main terminals.

One family member, Sunny D'Mello arrived to enquire about his parents, who are in their late 70s and not keeping good health, but he too was not told where the passengers were. 

He told this reporter that he wasn't, of course, worried about their safety as "Air-India is a safe airline despite the tragedy of June 1985, but I do want to speak to my parents. My parents are in their late 70s, they are not in good health."

D'Mello, however, noted, "The right call was made (to bring the plane back to the airport) and it's 160 lives that could have been lost."

The plane left the airport on its regular daily flight on Monday at 9.30 pm. It was back at the airport (after flying over Montreal) at 11.25 pm. The passengers were given meal and hotel vouchers at noon time, almost 12 hours after the plane was brought back under directive from Navigation Canada, said Police Constable Brandwood.

Many passengers have reportedly complained they were kept in the dark as to what was happening and why the plane was brought back from Montreal. 

After the passenger reported about the suspicious looking package, the captain reported it to the Navigation Canada and under their advice they "did what they felt was necessary at the time and although it's an inconvenience to the passengers it was done to ensure everyone's safety," Constable Brandwood was quoted in the Toronto Star as saying.  

"May be it was just as well," said Kiran Khaira of Birmingham who was on board flight 188 with her husband. But her thoughts immediately turned to the bombing of Air-India flight in 1985 that resulted in the death of 329 passengers and crew members. 

"Everyone was quite nervous, wondering what was going on, getting stressed out," she said. Khaira was going back to Birmingham after a short vacation in Toronto. "When I came out of the plane, I kept thinking that any minute something was going to happen. I'm quite glad that they made the right decision to come back," she added.

Peel Police are continuing their investigation as to how the package made its way on board the plane. 
 
Senator Colin Kenny who chaired the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence that recently produced a report  titled 'The Myth of Security at Canada's Airports' said the circumstances could have been tragic had the package that turned out 'to be benign' been otherwise as "it could have been hidden and no one would have known until the plane went down."

To him the incident demonstrates the glaring holes in the system for screening ground staff. 

His committee "had baggage handlers tell us they could bring anything they like to work. They tell us they'd have no trouble planting a box cutter (as in case of the terrorists that hit the two towers of the World Trade Center) behind every seat, or place a crate of them in an overhead compartment."

It is amazing and baffling as to why the Air-India office in Toronto or regional headquarters in New York are keeping mum as there was no lapse on their part unless, of course, their crew members for security reasons, are also required to physically check the plane before letting the passengers board the flight.

Caption: Sunny D'Mello (R), with other family members, waiting in front of Air-India check-in coutner at Terminal 3, Toronto airport, for news of his parents who were among 149 passengers on board A-I flight 188.