The attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 occurred on December 25, 2009, aboard an Airbus A330 as it prepared to land at Detroit Metropolitan Airport following a transatlantic flight from Amsterdam. Attributed to the terrorist organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the act was undertaken by 23-year-old Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab using chemical explosives sewn to his underwear. These circumstances, including the date, led to Abdulmutallab being commonly nicknamed either the "Underwear bomber" or "Christmas Day bomber" by American media outlets. If successful, it could have been the deadliest plane crash in the history of Michigan, surpassing Northwest Airlines Flight 255.
The event was the second airliner bombing attempt in the United States in eight years, following the 2001 American Airlines Flight 63 bombing attempt. If successful, the attack would have surpassed American Airlines Flight 191 as the deadliest airplane crash on U.S. soil and tied Iran Air Flight 655 as the eighth-deadliest of all time. It was also the second event in 2009 involving an Airbus A330 (after the June 1 crash of Air France Flight 447), and the final operational occurrence for Northwest Airlines (preceding that airline's merger with Delta Air Lines the following month).
For his role in the plot, Abdulmutallab was convicted as a civilian criminal in U.S. federal court and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. AQAP leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who reportedly inspired Abdulmutallab and "masterminded" the attack, was killed about two years later as the target of a drone strike in Yemen.
Sequence of events
Preparation
On December 16, 2009, Abdulmutallab visited the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines office in Accra, Ghana, and paid $2,831 in cash for a Lagos-Amsterdam-Detroit round-trip ticket, with a January 8, 2010, return date. At the time, Ghana and Nigeria were reportedly cash-based economies, making it normal for airplane tickets to be purchased in this manner. Initially, it was rumored by some media outlets that Abdulmutallab had tried to fly to Detroit because it was a major hub of the U.S. automotive industry. The Associated Press later reported that Abdulmutallab chose Detroit because its flights had the least-expensive fares compared to other U.S. destinations like Chicago and Houston.
Eight days later on December 24, he departed Ghana's Accra International Airport on Virgin Nigeria Flight 804, bound for Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, Nigeria. Abdulmutallab then connected at 23:00 local time to KLM Flight 588, a red-eye service from Lagos to Amsterdam operated by a Boeing 777. Upon his arrival at Schiphol Airport, Abdulmutallab checked in for Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with only carry-on luggage.
Bombing attempt
Flight 253 was serviced by an Airbus A330-323E (registered N820NW, serial number 0859) transporting 279 passengers, 8 flight attendants, and 3 pilots. The plane departed Amsterdam around 08:45 local time and was scheduled to arrive in Detroit at 11:40 EST.
As the plane approached Detroit, passengers aboard the flight recalled seeing Abdulmutallab enter a lavatory for about 20 minutes. After returning to his window seat at 19A (near the fuel tanks and wing), he complained of an upset stomach and was seen pulling a blanket over himself.
About 20 minutes prior to landing, he attempted to ignite a small explosive device consisting of plastic explosive powder sewn to his underwear, by injecting it with acid from a syringe to cause a chemical reaction. While a small explosion and fire occurred, the device failed to detonate properly. Passengers heard popping noises resembling firecrackers, smelled an odor, and saw the suspect's pants, leg and the wall of the plane on fire.
"There was smoke and screaming and flames. It was scary."
— Passenger on Flight 253, on witnessing the failed attack.
There were no air marshals on the flight, but several passengers and crew noticed the explosion. Dutch passenger Jasper Schuringa, seated in the same row, saw Abdulmutallab sitting and visibly shaking. He tackled and overpowered him. Schuringa saw the suspect's pants were open, and that he was holding a burning object. "I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away," said Schuringa, who suffered burns to his hands. Meanwhile, flight attendants extinguished the fire with a fire extinguisher and blankets, and a passenger removed the partially melted, smoking syringe from Abdulmutallab's hand.
Schuringa grabbed the suspect, and pulled him to the business class area at the front of the plane. A passenger reported that Abdulmutallab, though burned "quite severely" on his leg, seemed "very calm," and like a "normal individual." Schuringa stripped off the suspect's clothes to look for additional weapons, and he and a crew member restrained Abdulmutallab with plastic handcuffs. "He was staring into nothing" and shaking, said Schuringa.
Passengers applauded as Schuringa walked back to his seat. The suspect was isolated from other passengers until after the plane landed. A flight attendant asked Abdulmutallab what he had in his pocket, and the suspect replied: "Explosive device." When the attack triggered a fire indicator light within the cockpit, the pilot requested rescue and law enforcement personnel. The plane made an emergency landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in the Downriver Detroit community of Romulus, Michigan.
The Toronto Star reported that the plane's flight route would have had it over Canadian airspace when the attempted bombing occurred. Representatives of two pilot associations told the Star that Detroit Metro airport would have been the nearest suitable airport at which to attempt an emergency landing.
Postflight
While the plane suffered relatively little damage, the suspect incurred first and second degree burns to his hands, as well as second-degree burns to his right inner thigh and genitalia. Two other passengers were also injured. When the plane landed, Abdulmutallab was handed over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, and taken into custody for questioning and treatment of his injuries in a secured room of the burn unit of the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. Schuringa was also taken to the hospital. One other passenger incurred minor injuries.
Immediately after his arrest, Abdulmutallab talked to authorities about the plot for about 50 minutes, without having been informed of his Miranda rights. After emerging from surgery, he was informed of his rights and stopped talking to investigators for several weeks.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, led by Special Agent in Charge Andrew Arena, arrived at the airport after the plane landed. The aircraft was moved to a remote area so authorities could re-screen the plane, the passengers, and the baggage on board. A bomb-defusing robot was first used to board the plane, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) interviewed all passengers. Another passenger from the flight was placed in handcuffs after a dog alerted officers to his carry-on luggage; he was searched, and released without charges. While for several days thereafter federal officials denied that this second handcuffing had occurred, they later reversed this position, and confirmed that a second passenger had indeed been handcuffed.
Key people
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
The perpetrator of the attack was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian born into a wealthy-class family. Abdulmutallab was raised in Kaduna, in Nigeria's Muslim-dominated north, a place he returned to on his vacations.
In high school at the British International School in Lomé, Togo, Abdulmutallab was known to be a devout Muslim, who frequently discussed Islam with schoolmates. He visited the U.S. for the first time in 2004.
For the 2004–05 academic year, Abdulmutallab studied at the San'a Institute for the Arabic Language in Sana'a, Yemen, and attended lectures at Iman University. He began his studies at University College London in September 2005, where he was president of the school's Islamic society in 2006 and 2007, during which time he participated in, along with political discussions, such activities as martial arts and paintballing. During those years, he came to the attention of MI5, the UK's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, for radical links and connections with Islamic extremists. To protect his privacy, they did not pass the information along to American officials.
On June 12, 2008, Abdulmutallab applied for and received from the U.S. consulate in London a U.S. multiple-entry visa, valid to June 12, 2010, with which he visited Houston, Texas, from August 1–17, 2008. In May 2009, Abdulmutallab tried to return to Britain, supposedly for a six-month "life coaching" program at what the British authorities concluded was a fictitious school; accordingly, his visa application was denied by the United Kingdom Border Agency. His name was placed on a UK Home Office security watch list, which meant he was not permitted to enter the UK, though he could pass through the country in transit and was not permanently banned. The UK did not share the information with other countries.
Abdulmutallab returned to the San'a Institute to study Arabic from August to September 2009. "He told me his greatest wish was for sharia and Islam to be the rule of law across the world", said one of his classmates at the institute. Abdulmutallab left the institute after a month, but remained in Yemen.
Earlier, his family had become concerned in August when he called them to say he had dropped the course, but was remaining there. By September, he routinely skipped his classes at the institute and attended lectures at Iman University, which intelligence officials from the United States suspected to have links to terrorism.
The San'a Institute obtained an exit visa for him at his request, and arranged for a car that took him to the airport on September 21, 2009 (the day his student visa expired), but the school's director said, "After that, we never saw him again, and apparently he did not leave Yemen". In October, Abdulmutallab told his father via text message saying that he did not want to attend business school in Dubai, and wanted instead to study Islamic law and Arabic in Yemen. When his father refused to pay for it, Abdulmutallab said he was "already getting everything for free". He text-messaged his father, saying "I've found a new religion, the real Islam", "You should just forget about me, I'm never coming back", and "Forgive me for any wrongdoing, I am no longer your child". The family was last in contact with their son in October 2009.
On November 11, 2009, British intelligence officials sent the U.S. a message indicating that a man named "Umar Farouk" had spoken to Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim spiritual leader supposedly tied to al-Qaeda, pledging to support jihad, but the notice did not mention Abdulmutallab by name.
On November 19, his father reported to two CIA officers at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, regarding his son's "extreme religious views", and told the embassy that Abdulmutallab might be in Yemen. Acting on the report, the U.S. added Abdulmutallab's name in November 2009 to its 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. It was not added, however, to the FBI's 400,000-name Terrorist Screening Database, the terror watch list that feeds both the 14,000-name Secondary Screening Selectee list and the U.S.'s 4,000-name No Fly List. Abdulmutallab's U.S. visa was not revoked either.
Yemeni officials said that Abdulmutallab left Yemen on December 7 (flying to Ethiopia, and two days later to Ghana). Ghanaian officials said Abdulmutallab was there from December 9 until December 24, when he flew to Lagos.
Two days after the attack, Abdulmutallab was released from the hospital in which he had been treated for burns sustained during the attempted bombing. He was taken to the Federal Correctional Institution, Milan, a federal prison in York Charter Township, Michigan, near Milan.
Anwar al-Awlaki
A number of sources reported contacts between Abdulmutallab and Anwar al-Awlaki, the late Muslim lecturer and spiritual leader who the U.S. accused as a senior al-Qaeda talent recruiter and motivator. al-Awlaki, previously an imam in the U.S., who had moved to Yemen, also had links to three of the 9/11 hijackers, the 2005 London subway bombers, a 2006 Toronto terror cell, a 2007 plot to attack Fort Dix, and the 2009 suspected Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan. In 2006, he was banned from entering the UK; al-Awlaki repeatedly used a video link for public speeches from 2007 to 2009.
The Sunday Times reported that Abdulmutallab first met and attended lectures by al-Awlaki in 2005, when he was in Yemen to study Arabic. He attended a sermon by al-Awlaki at the Finsbury Park Mosque. Fox News reported that Abdulmutallab repeatedly visited Awlaki's website and blog. CBS News and The Daily Telegraph reported that Abdulmutallab attended a video teleconference talk by al-Awlaki at the East London Mosque.
CBS News reported that the two had communicated in the months before the bombing attempt, and other sources have said that at a minimum, al-Awlaki was providing spiritual support for Abdulmutallab and the attack. According to federal sources, over the year prior to the attack, Abdulmutallab had repeatedly communicated with al-Awlaki.