Air India Flight 182

Air India Flight 182 was a Boeing 747 that exploded on June 23, 1985 while at an altitude of 31,000 feet (9500 m) above the Atlantic Ocean, south of Ireland; all 329 on board were killed, of whom 82 were children and 280 were Canadian citizens. The explosion caused by a bomb placed in checked baggage was the single largest terrorist attack before those of September 11, 2001, and the largest mass murder in Canadian history. It occurred within an hour of the Narita Airport Bombing.

The Indian Government Theory

In 1989 a book was published entitled Soft Target: How the Indian Intelligence Service Penetrated Canada. Written by Canadian journalists Zuhair Kashmeri and Brian McAndrew, it claims the Indian government, operating through its clandestine counter-terrorism agency R.A.W. (Research and Analysis Wing), was behind the bombings. It claims that, but for the flight delay, the bomb was scheduled to go off on the ground after the flight reached Heathrow, just as the bomb at Narita detonated on the ground there. The book has been banned in India, but it is still available online. Excerpts from this book can be read here.

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