Mounties knew of Air-India threat, inquiry told

Mounties knew of Air-India threat, inquiry told

www.theglobeandmail.com

OTTAWA — Ontario Lieutenant-Governor James Bartleman said Thursday that the government had intelligence just days in advance of the Air-India bombing in 1985 that one of its aircraft would be targeted flying out of Canada.

Mr. Bartleman, who was the director of security and intelligence for the Department of External Affairs at the time, said he saw a document recording an electronic intercept to the effect that Air-India would be hit the weekend of June 22-23, 1985.

He personally took the document to an RCMP officer who brushed him off.

The Mountie, whose name Mr. Bartleman cannot recall, “hissed at me” that of course the RCMP had seen the intelligence report and had taken appropriate action.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is quite a revelation, since authorities continually stated that there had been no warnings to the act of terrorism that killed 307 passengers and 22 crew members.

There's going to be some pain spread around over this.



www.theglobeandmail.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

As if anyone thought this wasn't the next step of the drama.

What was behind not acting on the tip? Incompetance, a lack of caring?

Or was it something more sinister?

link

VANCOUVER — Their outrage was palpable. Family members of those killed in the Air-India disaster have been trying for more than 20 years to find out what happened at the time of the mid-air bombing.

Yesterday, they heard that days before it occurred, the RCMP brushed off information from an electronic intercept suggesting an Air-India flight had been targeted for the coming weekend.

“It's absolutely incredible,” Prakash Sahu, who had a father, stepbrother and stepsister on the flight, said yesterday in an interview from Montreal. “This makes a mockery of what the RCMP were doing.”

I found it interesting the day that story was first published last week, that the same bumbbling was found in courts in England concerning their bombing of 7/7 which Alex Jones says was an orchestration like 9/11 and ex CIA Tenant said he fully briefed Rice on the dangers of Alquida, planes and towers in person...
score one for the courts and the media

BTW, I had never heard of this before.

The second most deadly terrorist attack to 9/11 (involving aircraft), was known about as well? How did they not stop it?

In his verdict Justice Ian Josephson cited "unacceptable negligence" by CSIS when hundreds of wiretaps of the suspects were destroyed. Of the 210 wiretaps that were recorded during the months before and after the bombing, 156 were erased. These tapes continued to be erased even after the terrorists had become the primary suspects in the bombing.

WIKI

That is disgraceful that they did not stop it. Although I am also surprised that even after this they did not work on improving the ability to withstand a bombing on an aircraft. If they had, Lockerbie might not have occurred. Instead it was only done after Lockerbie. How many lives do these actions cost?

RCMP hiked Air India security day before bombing

OTTAWA - The RCMP was so concerned about threats to Air India in 1985 that it put extra security at Toronto's Pearson International on June 22, even though Transport Canada had refused to pay for the overtime, documents released at the Air India inquiry reveal.

The just declassified documents paint a picture of the extra measures that were undertaken by Canada's national police force to combat the continuing threat against Air India with repeated warnings of hijackings, sabotage and bombings that continued for months.

LINK

This only proves that the authorities were knowledgeable about a plot to blow up an Air India flight. They decided to put a couple of officers in place at the ticket counter at Pearson International Airport.

Air India 182 left from Mirabel.

Now things seem to be getting even more interesting.

LINK

Ottawa — The head of the Air-India inquiry is accusing the federal government of trying to undercut James Bartleman's startling testimony about what transpired in the days leading up to the deadly 1985 bombing.

John Major, in a pointed intervention at the hearings Monday, observed that there seems to be an “effort by government to discredit Mr. Bartleman.”

Deny, deny, deny... and, if possible, shoot messengers.

Link

Angry relatives and leaders of Montreal's south Asian communities say shocking new testimony at the Air India inquiry proves the bombing of Flight 182 in 1985 could have been prevented and that there was a cover-up afterwards to deflect blame from Canadian authorities.

Particularly galling, they say, is the fact the flight was allowed to leave Canada before a bomb-sniffing police dog could search the plane or its luggage, according to surprise testimony by a former Sret du Qubec officer at the inquiry Wednesday in Ottawa.

Reaction today was bitter.


They've been hiding so many things, and now everything is coming out," said widow Premila Sahu, who lost her husband and their two teenage children in the Air India disaster, which killed all 329 on board.

The growing controversy over obvious mishandling is becoming a major issue, yet fails to inflame the public. What, exactly, is behind the seemingly callous attitude of Canadians to the recent revelations? It leaves me to speculate that there is more than the obvious at play here.

Hints of the next possible twist in this story;

RCMP, Transport Canada squabbled over Air India security costs

OTTAWA - The RCMP and Transport Canada were embroiled in a dispute over who would pay for additional security for Air India in the weeks leading up to the 1985 bombing that claimed 329 lives, a public inquiry has heard.

But former Mountie Joe MacDonald insisted Monday that the spat didn't mean the airline was left unprotected from terrorist threats.

"It didn't affect the coverage" he told the inquiry. "They continued with the coverage (and said) basically we'll worry about the money later. But the arguments were going on all the time."

link

Seems to be quite a few 'calming' words attached to the story, but the revelation likely won't sit well with the families of the victims.

Don't know I could be wrong -- I'm into water I'm not sure of but will suggest. RCMP will safeguard (actually any Cdn Airport Security) will safeguard a foreign liner until it's departure.

Before going east to do his part, my Son worked for Pearson Security and I can say he once entered the cabin of an LL liner. Had a gun pointed in his face. LL's inboard security.
But Mark almost quit over that as know one warned him not to enter LL craft for security inspections on the tar mack.
Anyway, my point is, what go's on inside a flight is not (I Think?) the sovereign nation it's departing from.

Dallas

I used to work as a ramp-rat in Yellowknife International A/P, Dallas. That was in the early '70's and a long time ago.

Anyways... another update;

CSIS officer had bomb plot info, probe hears

OTTAWA — Two witnesses testified at the Air India inquiry Thursday they got the distinct impression from that a senior Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer had advance knowledge of the Sikh extremist plot to bomb an Air India flight in 1985.

The surprise witnesses are lawyers, and their testimony is based on recollections of separate conversations they had – just days before the bombing – with Mel Deschenes, the head of the CSIS counter-terrorist branch.

-snip-

“He did tell me he was afraid of a plane being taken out of the air, or in his words, blown out of the air,” Mr. Pinos said.

When he first learned that the Air India flight had gone down he said to himself: “'Holy expletive.' They knew they knew.”

This stuff is just piling up on a daily basis. We found out that the cop with the bomb-sniffing dog arrived after the plane had left Mirabel and also that it was the Air India's fault because they were antsy about losing money if the plane was delayed.

Lotsa finger pointing, but the smell is getting higher all the time.



[edit on 17/5/07 by masqua]

Originally posted by masqua
This stuff is just piling up on a daily basis. We found out that the cop with the bomb-sniffing dog arrived after the plane had left Mirabel and also that it was the Air India's fault because they were antsy about losing money if the plane was delayed.

The sad fact of several incidents where lives have been lost in the aviation industry, is that the airlines wanted to make more money than they should. It's not really surprising that it comes down to this in the end, it's what ultimately downed the Pan Am plane over Lockerbie, caused the loss of American Airlines Flight 191, a DC-10 that lost an engine on takeoff due to:

The original procedure called for removal of the engine prior to the removal of the engine pylon. To save time and costs, American Airlines, with the approval of McDonnell Douglas started to use a faster procedure. They instructed their mechanics to remove the engine together with the pylon all together as one unit. A large forklift was used to support the engine while it was being detached from the wing. This procedure was extremely difficult to execute successfully, due to difficulties with holding the engine assembly straight while it was being removed. Fork lift hydraulic systems could cause the engine unit to tilt whilst still under the wing. This exerted enough pressure on the engine pylon to damage the Clevis Pin assembly, and create an indentation in the housing of the self-aligning bearing, which in turn weakened the structure sufficiently to cause a small stress fracture.

I am pretty sure that more planes have gone down due to time and money saving measures. What amazes me is that airlines seem to prefer the loss of aircraft and money (and lives) to the implementation of safer features.

By the Way, Airliner bombings are nothing recent, the earliest was in 1933:

1933

* October 10 – A United Airlines Boeing 247 is destroyed by a bomb over Chesterton, Indiana in the first proven case of air sabotage on a commercial aircraft; all seven on board are killed.

While this was obviously not a bombing on the scale of this one we are discussing, it isn't like bombings were unheard of, yet the way the aviation industry has worked, it seems they are.

In fact, to get an idea of how many have been destroyed by bombings, have a look at this Wiki page and search using a find system on your browser and find how many times aircraft have been bombed.

I was quite surprised at the number, and to think that these weren't prevented in the 80's? It sickens me.

[edit on 17-5-2007 by apex]