Delayed Canadian Inquiry Into Flight 182 Resumes
A Canadian inquiry into the nearly 22-year-old bombing of
Air India Flight 182 resumed this week, with officials hearing the
airline was "ultimately responsible" for security failures in
Toronto and Montreal that allowed the Boeing 747 to be downed. The
terrorist act killed 329 people, in what has been described as the
worst mass murder in Canadian history.
The official inquiry into the 1985 bombing of air India Flight
182 began May 1, 2006. Just this month, new information and new
witnesses have emerged.
Former police officer and dog handler with Quebec's provincial
police, Serge Carignan, told the Air India inquiry Wednesday he
believes he could have found explosives on the flight, but the
plane had already departed from the Montreal airport by the time he
got there.
Former security guard Daniel Lalonde told inquiry head, retired
Supreme Justice John Major, he overheard one Air India official at
Mirabel Airport that night "stressing how expensive it would be to
delay the flight any longer," despite the discovery of three
suspicious bags that prompted them to call in a bomb-sniffing
dog.
According to Lalonde, Air India officials decided to go ahead
and send Flight 182 on its way on June 22, 1985, before it could be
searched by the bomb-sniffing dog because they were worried about
extra costs... as the plane had already been delayed on the ground
for more than an hour. This, despite the fact those same officials
had been reporting recent escalating bomb threats to Canadian law
enforcement.
Carignan, who'd been called in to conduct the baggage search,
said he was told officials needed help searching a plane and
luggage, that the airport's regular Royal Canadian Mounted Police
explosives dog was not available. By the time he arrived, roughly
45 minutes later, the plane had already taken off, he told the
inquiry.
"I've always wondered why, if I was called to search an airplane
and some luggage... why did they let the airplane go before I
arrived there," said Carignan.
"I did not have a chance
to search that airplane. I believe that if I had a chance to search
it, things might have turned out differently," he said. "I believe
we would have found... the explosives."
Lalonde is currently a sergeant with the Ontario Provincial
Police. During the night in question, he was an 18-year-old
new-hire working for Burns Security in his first job. He said he
had little training, and was earning $4 an hour.
He testified a representative of the airline named "John," a
large, tall man wearing a blue suit and fez, complained about the
cost concerns to another person as Lalonde stood nearby.
"I don't recall the words, but I recall it had to do with time
and money and how much it cost for a plane to be kept on the
ground," Lalonde testified.
Lalonde told the inquiry he had decided, after all these years,
to come forward "to be helpful and clarify, if it was pertinent."
He believes the Air India official of whom he spoke was likely John
Leo D'Souza, Air India's security chief, who has since passed
away.
D'Souza's interview by police after the bombing places blame on
another Air India official, Jainul Abid, for allowing the plane
take off even after suspicious bags were found. The interview
transcript was entered as an exhibit Wednesday.
"To my opinion his mind was already made up not to search the
plane at Mirabel Airport and not to delay any further the flight
schedule of Air India 182 since it was already delayed by 1.5 hours
and no one to my knowledge took the initiative to recall the Air
India 182 flight for security purposes," D'Souza said.
In the interview, he said he could have recalled the flight to
the airport, but that "in my mind, there never was any doubt which
would justify such an action regarding AI 182 on the 85-6-23."
No statement given to police in the days after the bombing
mentions or makes reference to cost as the reason or potential
reason the flight was not subjected to more thorough security
checks, according to the Vancouver Sun.
"I had no suspicions that there could be anything harmful on Air
India 182 either to the aircraft crew and passengers," D'Souza told
police.
D'Souza said he insisted the three suspect Montreal bags be
removed from the plane. But they were put away for the
bomb-sniffing dog Arko and Carignan, his handler.
Carignan and Arko, were
taken to an airport bunker after their arrival to search the three
pieces of luggage, but the dog didn't find any explosives, Carignan
said.
Carignan disregarded official RCMP and Transport Canada reports
during an earlier probe that said bomb-sniffing dogs checked the
flight before it left Toronto and Montreal.
"It is not true. I did not screen the flight. The only work I
did was search these three suitcases," said Carignan.
The explosives, allegedly planted by Sikh extremists, were
carried in suitcases loaded in Vancouver on the Boeing 747 after
Air India's X-ray machine broke down, and was replaced by an
ineffective hand-held "PD-4 sniffer."
D'Souza said at the time the PD-4 "is a good instrument for
detecting explosive natural fumes emanating from suitcases" even
though the RCMP had informed Air India five months earlier the
device didn't even work, according to media reports.
Liberal Parliament member Ujjal Dosanjh said contradictions with
the RCMP and Transport Canada reports are alarming.
"All of these contradictions are the making of a cover-up,"
Dosanjh told CBC News on Wednesday. "This is now more than casual
indifference."
Retired Transport Canada official and head of Ontario airport
security, Dale Mattson, testified he wished Air India had conducted
a baggage match against passengers because it would have inevitably
discovered the bomb.
Ultimately that security failure "is something that rested with"
Air India, he said. But, for that time, the airline's security
plan, including the sniffer and X-ray machine, were "so far ahead
of minimum standards" it was unlikely Transport Canada could have
intervened even if the agency wanted to, he said.
Mattson said he was aware of "general" threats to Air India, but
denied knowledge of the more extreme examples recently presented to
the inquiry, such as a May 1985 Air India Telex that detailed
"sensational acts such as hijackings of Air India" being plotted by
Sikh extremists.
Even more sensational evidence is expected Thursday when two
lawyers are to testify about a conversation relating to Sikh
extremists in British Columbia that took place during a California
meeting before the Air India bombing.
Mattson told Jacques Shore, the lawyer for the Air India
victims' families, that "much has been learned from the loss of all
those poor souls."
"There were a lot of things that we have learned from the lesson
of Air India that could have been done differently," Mattson
said.