Philippine Airlines Flight 434
Aftermath of the bombing, photographed by the United States Diplomatic Security Service.
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| Occurrence summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | December 11, 1994 |
| Summary | Bomb detonation leading to loss of flight controls |
| Site |
Minami Daito Island, Okinawa, Japan 25°50′45″N 131°14′30″E / 25.84583°N 131.24167°ECoordinates: 25°50′45″N 131°14′30″E / 25.84583°N 131.24167°E |
| Passengers | 273 |
| Crew | 20 |
| Fatalities | 1 |
| Injuries (non-fatal) | 10 |
| Survivors | 292 |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 747-283B |
| Operator | Philippine Airlines |
| Registration | EI-BWF |
| Flight origin | Ninoy Aquino Int'l Airport |
| Stopover | Mactan–Cebu Int'l Airport |
| Destination | Narita International Airport |
Philippine Airlines Flight 434 (PAL434, PR434) was a flight on December 11, 1994 from Cebu to Tokyo on a Boeing 747-283B that was seriously damaged by a bomb planted by terrorist Ramzi Yousef, killing one passenger and damaging vital control systems. The bombing was a part of the unsuccessful Bojinka terrorist attacks. The Boeing 747 (tail number EI-BWF) was flying the second leg of a route from Ninoy Aquino International Airport (formerly Manila International Airport), Pasay City in the Philippines, to New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport), Narita, in Japan, with one stop at Mactan–Cebu International Airport, Cebu, in the Philippines. After the bomb detonated, 57-year-old veteran pilot Captain Eduardo "Ed" Reyes was able to land the aircraft, saving the aircraft and the remaining passengers and crew.
Authorities later discovered that Ramzi Yousef, a passenger on the aircraft's prior flight leg, had placed the explosive. Yousef boarded the flight under the fake Italian name "Armaldo Forlani", an incorrect spelling of the name of the Italian legislatorArnaldo Forlani. He was later convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Yousef boarded the aircraft for the Manila to Cebu leg of the flight. After the plane was airborne, he went into the lavatory with his dopp kit in hand and took off his shoes to get out the batteries, wiring, and spark source hidden in the heel (below a level where metal detectors in use at the time could detect anything). Yousef removed an altered Casio digital watch from his wrist to be used as a timer, unpacked the remaining materials from his dopp kit, and assembled his bomb. He set the timer for four hours later, which was approximately the time at which the plane would be far out over the ocean en route to Tokyo, put the entire bomb back into his dopp kit, and returned to his current seat.
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