U.S. Says Plane Passenger Tried to Detonate Device

A Nigerian man with possible terrorist ties sneaked an explosive onto a trans-Atlantic Northwest Airlines flight on Friday and tried to ignite it as the plane prepared to land in Detroit, federal officials said. The device, described by officials as a mixture of powder and liquid, failed to fully detonate. Passengers on the plane described a series of pops that sounded like firecrackers.

Federal officials said the man wanted to bring the plane down. ''We believe it was an attempted act of terrorism,'' said a White House official who declined to be identified discussing the investigation of the incident, which is likely to lead to heightened security during the busy holiday season. ''This was the real deal,'' said Representative Peter T. King of New York, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, who was briefed on the incident and said something had gone wrong with the explosive device, which he described as somewhat sophisticated. ''This could have been devastating,'' Mr. King said.

It was unclear how the man, identified by federal officials as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, managed to get the explosive on the plane, an Airbus A330 wide-body jet carrying 278 passengers that departed from Amsterdam with passengers who had originated in Nigeria. A senior administration official said that the government did not yet know whether the man had had the capacity to take down the plane. A senior Department of Homeland Security official said that the materials Mr. Abdulmutallab had on him were ''more incendiary than explosive,'' and that he had tried to ignite them to cause a fire as the airliner was approaching Detroit.

Mr. Abdulmutallab told law enforcement authorities, the official said, that he had had explosive powder taped to his leg and that he had mixed it with chemicals held in a syringe. A federal counterterrorism official who asked not to be identified said Mr. Abdulmutallab was apparently in a government law enforcement-intelligence database, but it is not clear what extremist group or individuals he might be linked to. ''It's too early to say what his association is,'' the counterterrorism official said. ''At this point, it seems like he was acting alone, but we don't know for sure.'' Although Mr. Abdulmutallab is said to have told officials that he was directed by Al Qaeda, the counterterrorism official expressed caution about that claim, saying ''it may have been aspirational.''

The incident unfolded just before noon. ''There was a pop that sounded like a firecracker,'' said Syed Jafry, a passenger who said he had been sitting three rows ahead of the suspect. A few seconds later, he said, there was smoke and ''some glow'' from the suspect's seat and on the left side of the plane. ''There was a panic,'' said Mr. Jafry, 57, of Holland, Ohio. ''Next thing you know everybody was on him.'' He said the passengers and the crew subdued the man. The suspect was brought by the crew to the front of the plane -- Northwest Airlines Flight 253, bearing Delta's name -- and the plane made its descent into Detroit Metropolitan Airport, landing at 11:53 a.m. (The two airlines merged last year.) 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.

Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Detroit office, said F.B.I. agents were at the scene Friday night and were investigating the matter. One federal official who requested anonymity said Mr. Abdulmutallab had suffered severe burns but was expected to survive. A Michigan state official confirmed that he was being treated at the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor.

Friday's incident brought to mind Richard C. Reid, the so-called ''shoe bomber,'' who attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight between Paris and Miami in December 2001 by igniting his explosives-laden shoes. Since then, airline passengers have had to remove their shoes before passing through security checkpoints in American airports.

Source: New York Times

More information and images of the explosive device can be found here.