OTOT - Developing story
Flight forced to land; explosive shoes suspected
December 22, 2001 Posted: 5:53 PM EST (2253 GMT)
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- An American Airlines flight from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida, made an emergency landing in Boston on Saturday after a passenger attempted to ignite his shoes, which authorities said contained some sort of explosive.
The incident on American flight 63 began around 11 a.m. EST when a flight attendant smelled sulfur and asked the man what he was doing, officials said.
"He said he was 'wired,'" said Tom Kinton, aviation director of Logan International Airport in Boston.
Passengers and flight attendants tackled the man, and two doctors who were among the passengers sedated him, Kinton said. The man was then strapped to a chair with belts.
During the melee, two flight attendants were injured -- one of them bitten by the man -- said a spokeswoman for Massport, the organization that operates the airport. The flight attendant was taken to a hospital, she said.
The Boeing 767, carrying 185 passengers and 12 crew members, landed safely at Logan at 12:50 p.m. EST, escorted by two F-15 fighter jets. It was moved to a remote area of the runway.
FBI agents, Federal Aviation Administration officials and police from Massport are investigating the incident.
The man, about 28, was carrying a British passport that appeared to have been issued about three weeks ago in Belgium, and identified him as Richard Reid. He was traveling alone and had no checked luggage, Kinton said. Police took him into custody.
Once he was removed, his shoes were X-rayed aboard the plane by a bomb squad.
"They appeared to have wires and other things contained in them," Kinton said, identifying the material as a detonation cord and some kind of explosives.
The shoes were then taken to a field "and disrupted," Kinton said.
The shoes were taken to a lab for further analysis by the FBI, said Kinton, who praised the actions of passengers and crew. "We obviously had actions that aircraft that prevented something from occurring," he said.
Authorities were still combing the aircraft Saturday evening for any other suspicious devices, Kinton said.
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