Home Programs National security Air India review Lessons to be learned: The report of the Honourable Bob Rae Foreward

Foreward

In the early morning hours of June 23rd, 1985, Air India Flight 182 approached the west coast of Ireland. The flight began in Toronto, receiving passengers and luggage from connecting flights, and picking up more in Mirabel, Quebec. Children of all ages were joined by their families, looking forward to visiting their loved ones and friends in India. Most of the passengers were Canadians. Given the time of year — late June marks the beginning of summer holidays here in Canada — there were an especially large number of young adults, children and entire families traveling on the flight.

Unbeknownst to them, in the weeks prior to that flight, a group of Canadians had been planning to blow up the plane. The conspiracy was based in radical sections of the Sikh community in Vancouver and elsewhere who were pursuing the goal of an independent country, to be called Khalistan, in the northwestern province of Punjab in India.

As a result of this conspiracy, a bomb was manufactured, placed in a suitcase, and taken to the Vancouver airport, where on June 22, 1985, it was checked through on a flight from Vancouver to Toronto. In Toronto, the lethal suitcase made its way onboard Air India Flight 181, which then stopped at Mirabel and became Air India Flight 182, en route to London and Delhi.

At approximately 12:14 a.m., on June 23, 1985, the timer on the bomb detonated a charge and blew open a hole in the left aft fuselage of the plane. The aircraft, which bore the name ‘Kanishka’, was blown apart, falling approximately 31,000 feet below into the Atlantic Ocean off the south-west coast
of Ireland.

The children going to visit grandparents, young tourists looking forward to their first experience of India, women and men of all ages, flight attendants and pilots, in short all 329 passengers and crew were killed.

It was, at that point, and up until 9/11, the worst act of terrorism against the traveling public in world history.

Meanwhile, at Narita Airport in Tokyo, a bomb exploded at approximately 11:15 p.m. on June 22, 1985, while luggage was being transferred from Canadian Pacific Flight 003 to Air India Flight 301 to Bangkok. Two baggage handlers, Hideo Asano and Hideharu Koda were killed and four other baggage handlers were injured.

Numb with grief, families traveled to Cork in the west of Ireland where they were met by an Irish population who rallied to receive them. The hospital in Cork became a temporary morgue as the grim process of collecting and identifying bodies began.

Canadian authorities were not prepared for such a disaster. Family members were overwhelmed with grief, angry that this had been allowed to happen, furious that not enough was being done to answer their questions. That grief and anger has not gone away with the passage of time.

The Canadian government joined with the government of India and the local and national governments of Ireland to build a compelling memorial site on the southwestern shore of Ireland in 1985–1986. It is here that that the families come to remember their loved ones. Prime Minister Paul Martin led a delegation of Canadian political leaders to join the families on the twentieth anniversary of the bombing. It was the first such visit by a Canadian Prime Minister.

While statements were made in the House of Commons in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, many families continue to express their profound sense that the Air India bombing was never truly understood as a Canadian tragedy.

Let it be said clearly: the bombing of the Air India flight was the result of a conspiracy conceived, planned, and executed in Canada. Most of its victims were Canadians. This is a Canadian catastrophe, whose dimension and meaning must be understood by all Canadians.

For reasons set out below, I am recommending that a focused, policy based inquiry be held to deal with questions from this mass murder that remain unresolved. We know the location of the conspiracy that planned the bombings, and the identity of some of the conspirators; we know how the bombs got on two planes; we know the details of the bombs’ detonation. We do not need to re-visit these questions. They are clearly established. What we need to know more about is how Canada assessed the threat, how its intelligence and police forces managed the investigation and how its airport safety regulations did or did not work. Twenty years later, these questions are still worth asking. The Air India bombings were the worst encounter with terrorism Canada has experienced. We cannot leave any issues unresolved.