'Alarm bells' should have gone off after Air India telex

Canadian agencies dealing with airport security did not take the threat to Air India seriously enough before the devastating bombing of June 23, 1985, the Ottawa inquiry into the terrorist attack heard Friday.
University of Ottawa professor William Leiss, a risk analysis expert, said a series of telexes and tips before the bombing suggesting Air India would be targeted should have led to a more dramatic response.
In particular, a June 1, 1985 telex sent by Air India's head office in Bombay to the Toronto Air India outlet "should have set off alarm bells," Mr. Leiss told inquiry Commissioner John Major.
The telex, revealed at the inquiry last May, said "assessment of threat received from intelligence agencies reveal the likelihood of sabotage attempts being undertaken by Sikh extremists by placing time delay devices in the aircraft or registered baggage" of Air India flights.
Mr. Leiss said the RCMP and other Canadian agencies should have considered stopping all Air India flights leaving Canada until the threat had been properly assessed.
Instead, a B.C.-built bomb made its way onto Air India Flight 182 when it left Toronto, killing all 329 aboard. A second bomb the same day exploded in a Vancouver suitcase at Toyko's Narita Airport, killing two baggage handlers.
"For this business, airline security, it is extremely rare to get such a specific piece of information," Mr. Leiss said of the June 1, 1985 telex.
"That would raise your level of concern to the highest possible level so you would be at that point pulling out all the stops. You might even ground the flights until you had a better handle on -- since it was specific to Air India -- the credibility source analysis of the information."
Mr. Leiss said Canadian authorities did not have the tools to do proper risk assessment and therefore did not act accordingly to head off the worst mass murder in Canadian history.
07/12/07 Vancouver Sun/National Post, Canada

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Categories: Air India - International Dec 2007, Foreign Dec 2007, NACIL Dec 2007, Safety Dec 2007