Airport manager not made aware of Air India threats

The manager at Vancouver International Airport in 1985 told the Air India inquiry Wednesday that he was never made aware of the threats to the doomed airline even though connecting flights left his airport all the time.
Chern Heed, now an airport consultant and co-author of a report on the security missteps, said while Pearson and Mirabel airports had repeated warnings about Air India being a target, Vancouver heard nothing.
"The information was certainly not getting through to us on the ground at the time," Heed told inquiry Commissioner John Major.
Heed and experts Reg Whitaker and Jacques Bourgault were asked by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to prepare a report about the security issues around the time of the June 23, 1985 Air India bombing.
All three testified at the inquiry Wednesday about their findings, tabled in the report earlier this year.
Whitaker said that despite the fact that a threat by Sikh extremists had been identified, no one told Canadian Pacific airlines, who made the booking for one of the terrorists, who identified himself as "M. Singh" but never boarded the connecting CP flight.
"There seems to be no evidence that there was any transmission of this warning to airports that might connect," Whitaker said, adding that there was "no red flag put on Mr. Singh."
Whitaker said there were intelligence, regulatory and human failures that led to the Air India bombing and the murder of the 329 aboard.
31/05/07 Kim Bolan/CanWest News Service/Canada.com, Canada

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Categories: Air India Jun 2007, Foreign Jun 2007, Safety Jun 2007