Australian domestic airline Virgin Blue said yesterday that an incendiary device had been found on one of its jets and admitted its staff had failed to follow correct safety procedures.
Commercial operations chief David Huttner said a baggage handler found the device in the cargo hold of a 737-300 jet at Sydney airport on Monday morning. However, he denied that the item could have exploded on its own, saying it required someone to light it.
PHOTO: AFP
An initial police report has concluded the device contained thermite, a chemical used in grenades.
"It was not something that goes boom, it was something that burns which means somebody had to be there to light it," Huttner said.
"It was clearly placed there by somebody who had access to the airfield because it didn't go through checked baggage," he said.
The aircraft had just flown in from Maroochydore, Queensland and flew back to Queensland after the incident.
Huttner admitted that a staff member had not followed correct safety procedures in taking the item directly to airport security officials.
"While he was trying to do the right thing he didn't follow procedures properly," Huttner said.
The device was found wrapped in a cardboard toilet roll tube with a firework sparkler attached as a 30-second fuse. Huttner suggested a disgruntled airport worker may have planted the device deliberately, a suggestion strongly disputed by trade unionists.
"We believe it was an airport worker with an agenda," Huttner said.
"It wasn't taken on by a passenger because it was in the cargo hold and we don't know if it flew from Maroochydore to Sydney or if it was placed on the plane in Sydney," he said.
"We believe it was placed in a way that it would be found and draw the attention that it did today. Somebody is trying to make a show out of this whole thing in our view," Huttner said.
The discovery comes as fears have grown of a new terrorist attack on an Australian target in the runup to a general election on Oct. 9.
Earlier this month Australia's embassy in Jakarta was bombed in an attack blamed on Islamist terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah, the group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 88 Australians.
Analysts have suggested Islamists may be trying to influence the vote outcome, as a bloody attack in on trains Spain in March did there.
Officials of the Transport Workers Union said it was "absurd" to suggest that a disgruntled worker might have staged the incident and criticized training procedures for the airline staff.
"They're not trained. They're not aware," union airport organizer Glenn Nightingale told commercial radio. "They wouldn't know what a bomb, or a typical home-made bomb or a professional bomb looks like."
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