Criminal Actions – The Loss of the Kanishka Aircraft

Sikh extremists have tried and succeeded in blowing up the Air India Flight 182, as a reaction after a period of extreme tension between Sikh and Hindu communities.

Air India Boeing 747-237B VT-EFO, also called Emperor Kanishka, which operated Flight 182 on the eastern route connecting India to Canada, was flying at 9449 meters above the Atlantic Ocean. Kanishka was to land at London's Heathrow airport at 8:30am. The plane was late by 1 hour and 45 minutes due to a stop in Toronto to mount a spare engine - a special snap point – for the third position of the engine, located inside, under the left wing.
At 7:05am GMT, Flight 182 contacted the air traffic control tower at Shannon. The position of the airplane was 51 degrees N, 15 degrees W, flying at an altitude of 9300m and in a moderate wind speed of 962 km/h. Everything was normal at that point. However, at 07:14:01am GMT, the tower operators of Shannon heard in headphones a short click of the transmission button. In that second Flight 182 suddenly disappeared from the radar screen. 
In the following days, 5% of the total structure of the aircraft, and also 131 human bodies have been recovered by rescue vessels and taken to the coordination center of the accident founded in Cork. The bomb killed all 22 crew and 307 passengers. 198 bodies were lost at sea. British rescue ship Gardline Locator, equipped with a sophisticated sonar, and the French cable-laying vessel, Leon Thevenin, equipped with a robot-submarine, managed to recover Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR). They had only 30 days before the batteries mounted  on the acoustic beacon equipment expired. Both recording systems were recovered from the seabed on July 10th. 
The Boeing 747-237B VT-EFO aircraft was delivered to Air India in June 1978. The plane had lost all rear fuselage and tail in the deflagration that took place on the 23rd of June 1985. About half of the remains of the aircraft were scattered on the surface of the water. The larger and heavier sections of the plane sank very fast, at a depth of 2042m.


Broken
On July 16, the boxes CVR and FDR were examined by a team of aircraft safety experts reunited in Bombay. The results were lugubrious.  At exactly 7:13:01 pm, both systems recording stopped suddenly. This could only mean that all electrical compartment of the Flight 182 was destroyed completely and instantaneously and the most likely cause was a bomb. 
Some experts believed the area behind the front of the aircraft to be the site of the explosion, because of the sudden loss of power supply and the fact that the front door for loading luggage was found detached.  
But in Canada, the RCMP-led investigations have brought to light strong evidence of a terrorist attack staged by members of the Sikh. Starting on 16th of June, many reservations were made ​​under the name Singh, to determine the acceptance of luggage on board of the Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 003 and Air India Flight 182. The name Singh (meaning "lion") is common to all Sikh (even the two captains on board the Kanishka aircraft were named like that), but only two of the three booked by that name had the initials "L" and "A" and fitted the description of Lal Singh and Ammand Singh, both suspected by the FBI for the assassination attempt on Rajiv Gandhi (the sixt Prime Minister of India, 1984–1989), on his visit in Washington in the summer of 1985. The security system, which appeared effective, involved subjecting the passengers to a double security check. Metal detectors were used to scan for weapons and all hand luggages were controlled. Suitcases were individually X-rayed and if suspicious items were discovered, a portable bomb detector could be used to uncover explosives. Three bags containing suspicious packages had been stopped in Montreal, but a later inspection revealed them to be safe. Only an iron, a radio and a hair dryer were found. Air Canada, as Air India's handling agent, used a recommended passenger numbering system which ensured that all who had checked in boarded the aircraft. The terrorists have managed to mess up the system for checking passengers by booking on the flights linked to Flight 182, so their luggages were transferred on board without their physical presence. 


Terrorist responsibility 
In Japan, forensic experts found that the bomb was hidden in a Sanyo radio AM / FM with FMT 611K series. All the 2,000 units of that kind had been shipped from Sanyo factory to be sold in Vancouver in 1979. Other researches completed by RCMP determined that one of these outdated models was sold to two Sikh members in early June, just three weeks before the explosion. Because it was an obsolete model, the radio cases were large enough to house explosives and a trigger timer. 
  After an extraordinary rescue exercise held in October, in which 20 important pieces were recovered from the wreckage, they have found other evidence sustaining the bomb explosion theory. Among the debris they found burned chair cushions, deformed chair legs and a section of the cabin floor that had the shape of a dome. 
In January 1986, a report made by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada states that “There is sufficient evidence indicating that the initial event was an explosion ... in the front luggage compartment. This evidence is not decisive. However, the evidence does not lead to a different conclusion.” 

The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle has been an enigma for researchers and those investigating the area, for years. There have been dozens of reports that mentioned ships disappearing without a trace, and numerous civil and military aircrafts crashing of unknown causes, hidden in the mysterious triangle. 

The Bermuda Triangle is an area located on the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States of America, which is well known for a supposedly high incidence of unexplained disappearances of ships and aircrafts. The apexes of the triangle are believed to be Bermuda, Miami (Florida) and San Juan (Puerto Rico). The US Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as an official name. The US Navy does not believe the Bermuda Triangle exists. It is reported that Lloyd's of London, the world's leading market for specialist insurance, does not charge higher premiums for vessels transiting this heavily traveled area.

In October 1492, during his famous voyage, Christopher Columbus and a few crew members of the Santa Maria, have noticed a "large flame" in the sky. They have also noticed some mysterious lights and the crew experienced some magnetic turbulences. There began 500 years of observations of mysterious disappearances, which gave rise to the legend of the feared Bermuda Triangle, also known as The Devil’s Triangle. 

Flight 19 (Flight 19)
On the 5^th of December 1945, Lieutenant Charles Taylor of the U.S. Navy, started a training flight, departing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, accompanied by four teams from the TBM Avenger aircraft.

Although most of them were students and had no experience, it wasn’t unusual because they didn’t anticipated problems in what seemed to be an ordinary flight day. However, it was the last day that Lt. Taylor and his students were to be seen.

The aircrafts were completely fueled, but they were all missing their clocks. Lt.Taylor wanted to teach the students the “dead reckoning principles”, which involved calculating, among other things, the elapsed time. He assumed this the lack of timekeeping equipment wouldn’t be a problem, as each man had his own watch. Takeoff was scheduled for 01:45pm, but the departure was delayed until 14:10 by the the late arrival of Lt.Taylor. They described the weather at NAS Fort Lauderdale as "favorable, sea state moderate to rough". Lt.Taylor was supervising the mission, and a trainee pilot had the role of leader out front.

Heavy bombers of the Flight 19 headed east over the Atlantic, but at 03:40pm it was clear that something had happened. There was a message received from Lt.Taylor, which said that the compasses were malfunctioning and they were trying to get to Fort Lauderdale. After this message, his radio suddenly stopped transmitting. A nearby plane, that was performing another exercise, tried to redirect him to the base using the sun’s position. Although it was a clear day, Taylor could not see the sun. After about an hour from the last message received, they received some strange messages: “It seems I missed the flight route ... I can’t see the land ... we are lost...we're not sure of our position…nothing works right, weird...even the sea isn’t as it should be”. The last clear message sent by Flight 19 was received at 05:15pm, when a desperate voice said: “We are flying west, until we reach the shore or we run out of fuel”. Although there was another transmissions, “FT, FT”, on the same channel, a few hours later nobody knew anything about Flight 19. As the night was approaching, people were concerned and the commanding officer at  Fort Lauderdale ordered a rescue operation. They sent a PBM Mariner flying boat looking for the missing aircrafts, with a crew of 13 people. However this unit also disappeared without any trace. Some specialists released the theory that it had exploded in the mid-air while searching for the missing flights.

Bermuda Triangle
The notion of “Bermuda Triangle” arose in 1964 when a journalist used this phrase for the first time. Other authors began to investigate the phenomenon and, in 10 years, the Triangle became known worldwide. Moreover, the sight of mysterious disappearances increased from a triangle to a polygon with an area four times larger. 

As studies continued, the list of missing planes and ships increased. There came to light other mysterious disappearances reports before Flight 19. Charles Lindbergh also noticed a significant magnetic disturbance, while flying over the area by his plane, Spirit of St.Louis. Also numerous military flight devices, including a USAF B-24 and a Navy P5M, experienced serious anomalies of their flight equipment. 

A Douglas DC-3 disappeared during a flight from Florida, in 1947; the Avro Tudor IV Star Tiger, belonging to British South American Airways (BSAA), disappeared while approaching Bermuda, in 1948; this also has happened to Star Ariel, shortly after departure from Bermuda to Jamaica in 1949; a Dounglas C-47 Globmaster was lost in 1950; in 1960, a flight composed of five North American F-100 Super Sabres went into a cloud and only four came out; two Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and a Douglas C-133 Cargomaster vanished in 1963, all of these aircraft evaporated in the triangle.

A leap in time
"There was a cloud that had an odd shape of a cigarette" said pilot Bruce Gernon Jr. on his fantastic journey in 1970. Gernon was flying with his father as a co-pilot and he recalls that he had accelerated to escape from the cloud, but it seemed that it was rising to meet him. When he noticed a small tunnel inside the cloud, he tried to dive down through it, in an attempt to reach clear skies. But it seemed that the abnormal fog was coming towards him, the walls of the cloud were becoming whiter, and smaller clouds were swirling clockwise around them. When Gernon came out of the fog, he found out that he was in a white-green area, not a blue sky area, as expected. He also noticed that the compass was spinning with great speed in the opposite clockwise direction. All navigation equipment was malfunctioning and could not contact air traffic control personnel. Suddenly he noticed the land and, believing it is Bimini, he accelerated. He was very surprised to discover that the land was actually Miami Beach, which was impossible, given the time length of the flight. A trip that normally takes 75 minutes, was made ​​only in 45 minutes, and with a consumption of 40 liters lower than it should have. Gernon believes he is one of the lucky ones who escaped the trap of the Bermuda Triangle.

Explanations
What happens in the Bermuda Triangle? How is it that in this small area, so many ships, airplanes and even a U.S.Navy submarine vanished? All sorts of ideas were circulated, from ordinary ones, to some that are fantastic. Black Holes in space that are carrying ships into another dimension, alien beings abducting crews, even the ancient inhabitants of Atlantis, rising from below to make those who are too close to their secret kingdom disappear, all these hallucinating theories have been circulated at one point.
There are taken into account also the natural phenomenons. This area is well known for extremely violent storms and hurricanes, the water columns that rise from the sea can be an insurmountable barrier to boats and even airplanes flying at low altitude.
Recent researches suggest that violent movements of the sea creates magnetic turbulences and lead to the appearance of clouds, and that makes the local weather conditions to change rapidly. There is some evidence that suggest the area has some unusual magnetic and gravitational perturbations, but that also happens in other places in the world.

A closer study of the incidents within the Triangle came up with normal explanations. Flight 19, for example, had a great number of inexperienced pilots, and PBM Mariner flying boat that went in search of the disappeared flight, flew directly into the storm. Aircraft F-100 that disappeared in clouds may have simply been destroyed due to weather conditions. The interior of a turbulent storm consists of air that can take a plane up and down hundreds of feet in an instant. It's not so hard to imagine that a pilot can be thrown into the sea by an "invisible hand" that is entirely natural. There is also the fact that, due to the lack of land formations that would provide visual cues, it becomes easy for many aircrafts to be lost during a normal flight.
Illegal drug trafficking could play also a big role in those legends. Light planes that had the flight plan to reach the Caribbean in Florida, chose, instead, to land in Bermuda and, since there were drugs on board that were worth more than the flight machine itself, those were just made disappeared. Some conspiracy enthusiasts came up with the idea that the U.S. government is trying to hide the drug trafficking by keeping all sorts of stories alive.

Whatever the accepted explanation that tries to determine what is happening is, it seems that there is an invisible magnet that draws people's attention to this side of the Atlantic.

Though those that are overseeing the Triangle admit that 95% of the incidents can be naturaly explained by small investigations, they admit that 5% are things that have no explanation. Apparently, lately, the Bermuda Triangle is resting, but as soon as a new plane or boat will disappear, the interest for this area will spark again.