Nose smashed into wing of doomed Air India jet, bomb expert tells court


VANCOUVER, May 11, 2004
The Canadian Press

A defence expert on airline bombings said Air India Flight 182 began to fall apart in mid-flight as a result of forces on the plane's centre line consistent with an explosion.

Edward Trimble, testifying on behalf of accused Air India bomber Ajaib Singh Bagri, said the force of the explosion would have caused the whole rear section of the plane to have swung to the left.

With the added pull of an extra engine pod on the left wing and the loss of rudder control, the plane would have pitched forward and begun to roll.

At that point, Trimble said, the nose section would have begun to detach and swung right, striking the wing. He said blades from the number three engine could then have struck the cabin.

"The aircraft was pitching down at this stage,'' he said.

As well, Trimble said, the wreckage showed a fire had begun in the belly of the aircraft, likely in a forward area.

The blaze could have started in an electronics bay below the flight deck, Trimble said. Sparks from the equipment could have ignited atomized hydraulic fluid, he explained.

The engine blades from the extra engine pod were stored in wooden boxes in an aft cargo compartment, Trimble said.

Box remnants recovered from Irish beaches showed indications of having been burned in the fire, he said.

At one point, Trimble used a model of a Boeing 747 to illustrate his findings.

The model caught the attention of accused bombers Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik, the latter of whom dozed through much of the day's evidence.

The court is tentatively scheduled to visit the wreckage of the plane in a warehouse at an undisclosed Vancouver location later this week.

The plane exploded off the coast of Ireland June 23, 1985 killing all 329 aboard.

Much of the wreckage is still at the bottom of the ocean, although pieces were recovered and have been studied to try to determine what happened on board.

Both Trimble and Crown expert Christopher Peel, agree the blast likely came from a left aft baggage area.

Bagri lawyer Richard Peck said the evidence about that area is a major area of contention between Peel and Trimble. That evidence will be heard Wednesday.

Peel, who worked with Trimble on the 1988 Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombing, earlier told the court he was sure the bomb was in the vicinity of baggage area 52, which is where a mysterious unaccompanied suitcase from Vancouver had been loaded.

Trimble, a retired senior official with the British Air Accident Investigations Branch, is the main defence witness for Bagri's team which contends the device was in area 51, only two feet away.

Baggage in that area was loaded in Toronto.

The distance between the two areas could be the distance between a finding of guilt or innocence for Bagri.

The scientists have been asked to be extremely precise. The two baggage compartments in question are located mere feet apart.

The prosecution has presented evidence that bags from two men, both named Singh, were checked in at Vancouver International Airport.

It has also heard evidence that Bagri wanted to borrow a car to take some bags to Vancouver International Airport just before the bombing. He told a female friend, whose name is protected by court order, only the bags would be leaving.

If the court finds the bomb was in 51, the connection between Bagri and the bomb vanishes.

Once the testimony is over and the wreckage has been visited, the defence case will be complete after 13 months of hearings.

Malik and Bagri are charged with conspiracy and murder in the plane bombing and a second explosion that happened later the same day killing two baggage handlers at Tokyo