Alert passengers saved plane from alleged terror bid

Washington: Alert passengers, who pounced on the man allegedly trying to blow up a US Airliner, played a major role in thwarting the terror bid to blow up the plane which was on its was from Amsterdam to Detroit.

As many as 278 passengers were on board the Northwest Airline flight 253, when a Nigerian national allegedly tried to ignite a powder some 20-25 minutes before it was about to land at the Detroit airport.

The man had "some kind of incendiary device he tried to ignite" in a bag strapped to his body, NBC News said quoting unnamed officials.

Other officials said the device was a mixture of powder and liquid, which failed to ignite when the passenger tried to detonate it during the plane's descent.

The passengers became alert after his actions caused noise and smoke started coming from his seat.

Two people saw the attempted attack, and a third person jumped on the man and subdued him, an airline official told NBC News.

The man identified as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, sustained burn injuries and is being treated in a hospital. He is being questioned by FBI and other federal investigating agencies.

Syed Jafry, a passenger sitting three rows ahead of the suspect, said "there was a pop that sounded like a firecracker" and the "next thing you know everybody was on him".

A few seconds later, Jafry said, there was smoke and "some glow" from the suspect's seat from three rows behind him and on the left side of the plane, according to The New York Times.

"There was a panic," Jafry, 57, from Ohio was quoted as saying. "Next thing you know everybody was on him," he said. He said the passengers and the crew subdued the man.

The Nigerian national was brought by the crew to the front of the plane Northwest Airlines flight 253, operated on a Delta airplane made its descent into Detroit Metropolitan Airport, landing at 11:53 a.m (local time).

Once on the ground, it was immediately guided to the end of a runway, where it was surrounded by police cars and emergency vehicles and searched by a bomb-disabling robot.

Another passenger Rich Griffith told Detroit News that he was seated too far in the back to see what had happened.

"It's frustrating if you don't want to keep your country safe," he said. "We can't have what's going on everywhere else happening here," he added.