Passengers took plane's survival into own hands

Despite the billions spent since 2001 on intelligence and counterterrorism programs, sophisticated airport scanners and elaborate watch lists, it was something simpler that averted disaster on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit: alert and courageous passengers and crew members.

During 19 hours of travel, aboard two flights across three continents, law-enforcement officials said, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab bided his time. Then, as Northwest Flight 253 began its final approach to Detroit around noon Friday, he tried to ignite the incendiary powder mixture he had taped to his leg, they said.

There were popping sounds, smoke and a commotion as passengers cried out and tried to see what was happening. One woman shouted, "What are you doing?" and another called out, "Fire!"

And then history repeated itself. Just as occurred before Christmas in 2001, when Richard Reid tried to ignite plastic explosives hidden in his shoe on a trans-Atlantic flight, fellow passengers jumped on Abdulmutallab, restraining the 23-year-old Nigerian, officials said.

Jasper Schuringa, a Dutch film director seated in the same row as Abdulmutallab but on the other side of the aircraft, saw what looked like an object on fire in the suspect's lap and "freaked," he told CNN.

"Without any hesitation, I just jumped over all the seats," Schuringa said, in an account other passengers confirmed.

"I was thinking, 'Oh, he's trying to blow up the plane.' I was trying to search his body for any explosive. I took some kind of object that was already melting and smoking, and I tried to put out the fire and when I did that I was also restraining the suspect."

Schuringa said he had burned his hands slightly as he wrestled with Abdulmutallab, aided by other passengers among the 289 on board, and he began to shout for water.

"But then the fire was getting worse, so I grabbed the suspect out of the seat," Schuringa said. Flight attendants ran up with fire extinguishers, doused the flames and helped Schuringa walk Abdulmutallab to first class, where he was stripped, searched and locked in handcuffs.

"The whole plane was screaming; but the suspect, he didn't say a word," Schuringa said.

He shrugged off praise for his swift action, which he said was reflexive. "When you hear a pop on the plane, you're awake; trust me," he said. "I just jumped. I didn't think."

In an affidavit filed in court, an FBI agent said Abdulmutallab stayed in the bathroom for 20 minutes before the attempt, returned to his seat, told his seatmates his stomach was upset and covered himself with a blanket. It was then the smoke and popping sounds began.

After he was subdued and the fire extinguished, a flight attendant asked him what had been in his pocket; he answered, "explosive device," the affidavit said. The powder was identified by the FBI as pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), an explosive.

The close call was followed by several tense hours as counterterrorism officials checked on more than 120 other U.S.-bound flights to determine whether more planes were targets, as in the thwarted 2006 plot to smuggle liquid explosives aboard multiple flights leaving from Britain.

They found no immediate signs other flights were in danger, officials said. They tightened airport security, ordering new restrictions on carry-on luggage and passenger movement inside the cabin but did not elevate the nation's threat level, which has been at orange since 2006.

Dozens of investigators, led by the FBI, were working Saturday to understand exactly how a passenger managed to get PETN and a syringe of chemicals aboard the flight.

David Schilke, 49, of Livonia, Mich., who works at Ford Motor, was traveling home from Moscow with his wife, Iliana, and their 5-year-old son, sitting two rows behind the suspect. He said he heard a pop, and then someone asking for water and screams coming from the rows in front of him. The fire, he said, lasted for a full minute.

"The guy wasn't fighting or doing anything," Schilke said. "He was just sitting there in the flames."

Abdulmutallab apparently left Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, aboard KLM flight 588, a Boeing 777, at 11 p.m. Christmas Eve and arrived at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands, early on Christmas. Three hours later, Northwest 253, an Airbus A330, took off for Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, with three pilots, eight flight attendants and the 278 passengers.

A Delta Air Lines plane was being used for Northwest Flight 253. Delta is days away from obtaining a single operating certificate from the FAA to fully integrate itself and Northwest.

Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt in Washington, Sarah Lyall in London, Micheline Maynard and Nick Bunkley in Detroit, and Matthew L. Wald in Sarasota, Fla.