Bomb Caused Jet Crash That Killed 329, India Finds

A bomb blast caused the crash last year of an Air-India Boeing 747 jet off the Irish coast that killed all 329 people aboard, the government announced Friday.

The conclusion was reached last month by a commission appointed to investigate the disaster, Aviation Minister Jagdish Tytler told Parliament.

Tytler’s statement confirmed press reports that the inquest upheld the theory of several Indian and foreign experts that a bomb exploded inside the plane last June 23 as it cruised 31,000 feet over the Atlantic, causing it fall into the ocean. Two militant Sikh groups claimed to have bombed the plane.

The minister said all five government-appointed investigators agreed on the verdict.

Details of the commission’s 200-page report have not been released, but experts testified during public hearings that a bomb was concealed in baggage stowed in the front cargo hold of the Toronto-to-Bombay flight.

It was not known whether the inquiry decided who planted the device, although Canadian investigators have focused their inquiry on Sikh dissidents living in Canada.

Several experts believe that the blast was related to an explosion an hour later at Tokyo’s Narita airport in baggage removed from a Canadian Pacific flight from Vancouver that killed two baggage handlers.

The baggage was to have been transferred to an Air-India flight to Bangkok.