On board emergency

Passengers’ Quick Action Halted Attack

By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LIPTON

Published: December 26, 2009 in The New York Times

Despite the billions spent since 2001 on intelligence and counterterrorism programs, sophisticated airport scanners and elaborate watch lists, it was something simpler that averted disaster on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit: alert and courageous passengers and crew members.Skip to next paragraph

During 19 hours of travel, aboard two flights across three continents, law enforcement officials said, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab bided his time. Then, just as Northwest Flight 253 finally began its final approach to Detroit around noon on Friday, he tried to ignite the incendiary powder mixture he had taped to his leg, they said.

There were popping sounds, smoke and a commotion as passengers cried out in alarm and tried to see what was happening. One woman shouted, “What are you doing? ” and another called out, “Fire! ”

And then history repeated itself. Just as occurred before Christmas in 2001, when Richard C. Reid tried to ignite plastic explosives hidden in his shoe on a trans-Atlantic flight, fellow passengers jumped on Mr. Abdulmutallab, restraining the 23-year-old Nigerian.

Jasper Schuringa, a Dutch film director seated in the same row as Mr. Abdulmutallab but on the other side of the aircraft, saw what looked like an object on fire in the suspect’s lap and “freaked, ” he told CNN.

“Without any hesitation, I just jumped over all the seats, ” Mr. Schuringa said, in an account that other passengers confirmed.“I was thinking, Oh, he’s trying to blow up the plane. I was trying to search his body for any explosive. I took some kind of object that was already melting and smoking, and I tried to put out the fire and when I did that I was also restraining the suspect.”

Mr. Schuringa said he had burned his hands slightly as he grappled with Mr. Abdulmutallab, aided by other passengers among the 289 on board, and began to shout for water.

“But then the fire was getting worse, so I grabbed the suspect out of the seat, ” Mr. Schuringa said. Flight attendants ran up with fire extinguishers, doused the flames and helped Mr. Schuringa walk Mr. Abdulmutallab to first class, where he was stripped, searched and locked in handcuffs.

“The whole plane was screaming — but the suspect, he didn’t say a word, ” Mr. Schuringa said.

He shrugged off praise for his swift action, which he said was reflexive. “When you hear a pop on the plane, you’re awake, trust me, ” he said. “I just jumped. I didn’t think. I went over there and tried to save the plane.”

In an affidavit filed in court, an F.B.I. agent said that Mr. Abdulmutallab stayed in the bathroom for 20 minutes before the attempt, returned to his seat, told his seatmates that his stomach was upset and covered himself with a blanket. It was then that the smoke and popping sounds began.

After he was subdued and the fire extinguished, a flight attendant asked him what had been in his pocket, and he answered, “explosive device, ” the affidavit said. The powder was identified by the F.B.I. as PETN, a high explosive.

The close call was followed by several tense hours as counterterrorism officials checked on other United States-bound flights to determine whether more planes were targets, as in the thwarted 2006 plot to smuggle liquid explosives aboard multiple flights leaving from Britain.

They found no immediate signs that other flights were in danger, officials said. They tightened airport security, ordering new restrictions on carry-on luggage and passenger movement inside the cabin, but did not elevate the nation’s threat level, which has been at orange since 2006.

Dozens of investigators led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation were working Saturday to understand exactly how a passenger managed to get PETN and a syringe of chemicals aboard the flight. Intelligence agencies were studying intercepted communications to see whether clues were missed and to assess whether the incident could presage more attacks.