What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of India? Movies, joyful military parades, or all sorts of strange customs?
In addition to these, India is also a country with many religions, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, and many more, all of which have room to survive here.
In India, most people are religious, and if someone in India asks you what religion you believe and your answer happens to be no, then congratulations, you have become an outlier in the eyes of Indians.
There are many religions, and everyone's teachings are different, and it is inevitable that there will be contradictions between various religions, and today Hinduism and Islam have some contradictions, tomorrow Christianity and Sikhism will have conflicts, and so on and so forth.
Among the various religions in India, Hinduism as the state religion has the largest number of adherents, and every time Hinduism comes into conflict with other sects, the Indian government runs out to pull the strings.
Hinduism is like the most favored child in a big family, no matter what he fights with his siblings, his parents think that others are bullying him.
But the problem is that the Indian government does not have the absolute strength to subdue other sects, so almost every time it pulls a bias, it will be resisted, which will lead to more serious consequences.
In the 80s of the 20th century, India was in turmoil, and local political parties did not like the central government at all.
Among them, the Sikh fundamentalist forces, led by Binderranwale, are the most extreme.
Unlike other political parties, which are at best disobedient to the government, Binderranwale has gone far further in his behaviour and orders his men to cause trouble, mainly against Hindus.
You said that if you bully and bully other sects, we can still turn a blind eye, and maybe secretly gloat, but you just have to deal with our state religion, and it is not appropriate for you not to take action.
The Congress Party has the intention to suppress it directly, but it is afraid that the losses will be too great and the other local political parties will benefit, so they simply talk to Binderranwale first, and do not use force if they can, after all, we are all devout believers.
So the Congress Party contacted Binderranwale and negotiated with him many times, basically to ask him to give the Congress Party some face, and it was almost done.
To the surprise of the Congress, Binderranwale's response was: "Your Congress Party has no face in me." ”
The dialogue with Bindranwale did not work, and it was not right, but the effect was still there, that is, after the negotiations, Bindranwaleh's behavior seemed to have become more radical, and he began to create violence and provoke Hinduism.
In doing so, he is not just not giving face to the Congress Party, it is simply rubbing the face of the Congress Party on the ground.
Now the Congress Party doesn't want to settle the matter, don't you disrespect me, I'll kill you.
On June 6, 1984, Indira Gandhi launched Operation Blue Star, sending troops to attack the Golden Temple, the holy site of Sikhism, and directly killed Binderranwale.
If this is all there is to it, the Congress Party's actions are justified, but the worst thing is that the army also killed a large number of Sikh civilians during the operation, which can also stab the hornet's nest.
You know, Sikhs are spread across all walks of life in India, and this act of the Congress Party has aroused the hatred of almost all Sikhs.
It just so happens that there are Sikhs among Indira Gandhi's personal bodyguards, and the people in charge of protecting you are always trying to kill you, and the consequences can be imagined.
On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was stabbed to death in her mansion.
Later, in retaliation, the Congress Party provided weapons to the Hindus, and spread rumors to intensify the contradictions between the two sides, and during that time, Indian hospitals did not even treat Sikhs, and India was bloody and chaotic for a while.
And the Congress party killed Binderan Wale, and the new Sikh leader has no intention of giving up, and a head-on resistance will definitely not be able to defeat the Congress party that holds power, but it is still easy for them to secretly sabotage and plan a terrorist attack or something.
In June 1985, the Sikh separatist movement, which was hiding in the shadows, decided to carry out a terrorist attack against the Congress party.
What kind of actions can hurt the Congress Party and have a huge impact on the international community?
After thinking about it, they hit the idea on an international flight to India.
Air India Flight 182 is a scheduled international route from Toronto, Canada to Mumbai, India, with stops in Montreal (Canada), London (UK) and New Delhi (India).
It can be said that this route is very important for India, and if an accident occurs, it will definitely be a considerable blow to the Indian government.
On June 23, an Air India Boeing 747 took off from a Canadian airport as usual, carrying 307 passengers and 22 crew members.
At 7:10 a.m., the plane was flying smoothly in the air, and some of the passengers on board were taking a nap, some talking excitedly about the rest of the journey, and they had no idea what kind of nightmare they were about to face.
Due to a coincidence of timing, the Indian airline's plane had a brief encounter with two flights from other countries, at which point the three planes overlapped on the radar of the Shannon air traffic control center.
In order to better monitor the flight situation of different flights, the technicians of the air traffic control center plan to use technical means to separate the three aircraft on the radar.
When the technicians were done, a surprising scene occurred, the radar showed only the positions of the two planes, and the Air India flight disappeared in plain sight.
Realizing that something was going to happen, the staff immediately contacted him by radio, but received no reply.
Air traffic controllers quickly contacted the search and rescue team to inform them of the location of the missing plane, while the search was also launched by ships cruising nearby.
Two hours later, the Shannon traffic control center received a message from a Canadian freighter that they had found objects resembling aircraft wreckage in a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, as well as lifeboats that had not yet been inflated.
At this point, it has been established that the plane from Air India unfortunately crashed, and the next thing is no longer within the purview of the air traffic control center, and as is customary, the accident investigation team has fully taken over the next step.
The first task of the investigation team after taking over is to salvage the wreckage of the plane and search for survivors, of course, if the investigation team is lucky enough to find the black box on the flight, so as to quickly find out the truth of the accident, then the investigation work will be much easier.
The wreckage of the flight was transported to Cocoa, a coastal city on the south coast of Ireland.
Because the bodies of some of the victims were so badly damaged that doctors could only identify them by their teeth.
It soon became clear to the doctors that the bodies had several things in common.
For example, although the bodies were recovered from the sea, the vast majority of the victims did not drown, suggesting that they died before they fell into the Atlantic.
Add to this the fact that the clothes of these victims were in tatters, and they all had broken bones of varying degrees, and all this says a thing: the plane did not crash directly into the Atlantic, but disintegrated in the air.
So what makes an airplane fall apart in the air? machine failure or sabotage?
Due to the very serious damage of the plane and the fact that there were too few clues in the hands of the investigators, the investigation was at an impasse for a while, and the only way to do this is to hope that the black box can be found as soon as possible, hoping that the information inside can reveal the truth of the air crash.
However, at this time, the black box has sunk to the bottom of the sea at a depth of several thousand meters, although the searchers can locate its general location through radio signals, but in the deep sea where you can't see your fingers and the pressure is extremely high, salvaging a small black box is obviously not a task that can be completed in a short period of time.
It is not possible for this investigation team of the British, Indian, and Irish to sit in the room and wait for news from the black box, right?
So they decided to investigate the plane's maintenance records to see if anything suspicious was there.
Not to mention, through the investigation, they really found something suspicious, and the maintenance records showed that Flight 182 was actually equipped with 5 engines.
To be reasonable, it is not impossible to carry one more engine, the key is that an extra engine will affect the power of the aircraft, so it is necessary to compensate for the power in advance.
The investigators, who were struggling with no clue, made a bold assumption, could it be that the mishandling of this engine caused the tragedy?
As the investigation deepened, it was discovered that the Indian engineers had installed the engine in the wrong way.
And most of the parts of the engine were dismantled and put into the hold, and because some of the parts were so large, the engineers even dismantled the door of the hold.
If engineers don't properly dispose of the dismantled hatch, there is a high risk that the aircraft will lose pressure and disintegrate in the air.
At this point in the investigation, it can be said that this mishandled engine is the most suspicious, but all this is just everyone's inference, and the information in the black box is still the most critical.
Two weeks later, the search team determined the approximate location of the black box, and then they used deep-sea diving gear, and after many attempts, they finally succeeded in salvaging the black box.
However, when the investigation team analyzed the data in the black box, they collectively lost their voices.
According to the data of the black box, the signal in the cabin was interrupted in an instant, and before the signal was interrupted, all the data of the aircraft was normal.
These data can only tell one thing, the investigation team's previous inferences about the accident were wrong, and they found themselves seemingly farther and farther away from the truth.
If the failure of the equipment of the aircraft itself is ruled out, there is only one reason left that can cause the aircraft to disintegrate instantly, and that is the sudden explosion.
The investigation team began to suspect that someone had deliberately created the crash, which was the last thing they wanted.
In the subsequent investigation, they focused on the passengers of the flight, but they did not expect that this move would bring unexpected gains.
The investigation team found that a person named "Singh M" appeared in the list of people who purchased tickets, but there was no person in the boarding list.
It would be strange to say that he canceled his trip at the last minute, but his luggage went into the compartment of the plane through the Vancouver airport.
But if Mr. Singh had explosives in his luggage, how did he get through the tight security checks at Vancouver Airport?
Could it be that he has an internal response at the airport, or that there is a problem with the security machine?
Subsequently, the investigation team retrieved the surveillance video of the day at Vancouver Airport, and after careful viewing, they found a helpless fact.
The pot in which the bomb was mixed into the plane, the security machine really couldn't carry it.
It turned out that the alarm did go off when Mr. Singh's luggage passed through the X-ray machine, but the security personnel at the time did not pay attention to the sound of the security machine that was different from the sound of the bomb siren he demonstrated when he was trained.
In this way, the negligence of the security personnel led to the largest terrorist attack in the history of aviation.
At the same time as the crash of Flight 182, there was also an explosion at Narita Airport in Japan.
One piece of baggage exploded while passing through security, killing two baggage inspectors.
Coincidentally, the bag was also from Vancouver and was about to board an Indian airliner, and the person who checked in the luggage was also "Singh M".
All the evidence shows that the crash of Flight 182 was not a simple accident, but so far, the investigation team still has no substantial evidence in their hands to confirm that the crash of Flight 185 was caused by a bomb explosion.
Soon after, the salvage team recovered several important parts of Flight 182, and after the investigators put them together, the holes in them caught everyone's attention.
I saw that all the holes were curled from the inside out, and it was obvious that the cause of these holes was caused by some hard shards hitting them from the inside out.
Among them, the hole in the inner wall of the baggage compartment is more intuitive, and there are obvious broken marks at the place where the baggage compartment and the cabin are connected, which indicates that the location where the bomb is stored should be the baggage compartment.
In this Boeing 747 airliner, all the important electronics are under the cockpit, right next door to the baggage compartment, which is why the entire airliner lost power at the same time at the moment of the bomb explosion.
At this point, it can be said that the truth has been revealed, and the crash of Flight 182 was not an accident, but a terrorist incident against India.
Flight 182 was already in tatters, and it was very difficult to find clues, so the investigation team turned its attention to the Japanese side.
After analyzing the remnants of the explosion at Narita Airport, it was determined that the bomb was hidden in a certain Sanyo radio and placed in the suitcase.
The radio was discontinued years ago, and police investigations revealed that the last radio of the model had been sold from a store in Duncan Township, near Vancouver, a few weeks earlier.
Soon the police found the terrorists hiding in Vancouver and quickly carried out arrest operations.
During the exchange of fire between the two sides, the leader of the terrorists was killed on the spot.
After interrogation, it was revealed that the group were Sikh extremists and that the operation was aimed at revenge against the Indian government.
Although the culprits behind the scenes have been brought to justice, which can be regarded as giving a little explanation to the families of the victims, the pain caused by this incident may take a lifetime to heal.
After this incident, the civil aviation companies of various countries were greatly shaken, and they were all glad in their hearts, thanks to the fact that this terrorist attack was aimed at Air India, if it was aimed at us, we would not be able to withstand it.
But then again, which country does not have a few hostile forces, what if it is their turn next time, so how to ensure the safety of passenger aircraft for a while has also become a problem that the entire civil aviation community is discussing.
The easiest way to do this is to strengthen the baggage compartment with a high-strength material so that even if a small bomb explodes inside, it will not cause serious damage to the aircraft.
Ten years after the Air India 182 crash, the British Berding Institute built an airplane luggage rack reinforced with a material called Kevlar.
In order to prove the anti-blasting effect of this material, they deliberately conducted an experiment.
The engineers placed two bombs in the reinforced forward cargo compartment, and the rear cargo compartment was also made of ordinary materials, and the engine room was pressurized to simulate the pressure value at the sailing altitude.
After detonating the bomb, the result was the same as previously predicted.
The Kevlar-blessed reinforced cargo compartment can greatly reduce the impact of the bomb and greatly reduce the degree of damage to the cabin.
Admittedly, Berding's experiment confirms that the enhanced baggage compartment is indeed useful, but most civil airlines say they will not modify the baggage compartment for one word: expensive.
The cost of strengthening the baggage compartment is too high, and it will be much cheaper to strengthen the security work at the airport.
As a result, major airports have begun to increase the level of security, especially in the inspection of luggage.
First of all, the old X-ray machine was eliminated and replaced with the most advanced color X-ray machine, and secondly, the boarding process was changed, and the original baggage and passengers were not checked at all, but after this incident, there will be a special person at the airport who is responsible for checking the luggage and passengers.
Once it is found that the owner of the luggage is not on the plane, the luggage will be unloaded and handed over to a special person to manage.
Finally, there is professional training for airport security personnel, who are burdened with heavy responsibilities and cannot tolerate the slightest sloppiness.
No matter how advanced the machine is, it needs people to operate it, and the machine is not omnipotent, they are the last pass to ensure the safety of the airport.
Whatever the reason, the use of such extreme means to harm unarmed civilians should not be forgiven.
To commemorate the victims of the Flight 182 crash, the Canadian government erected a memorial in Vancouver's Stanley Park, which was completed in July 2007.
Twenty years after the "Indian Airways 182 incident", the Governor General of Canada, Wu Bingzhi, suggested that then Prime Minister Paul Martin declare June 23 as a national day of mourning to commemorate the victims of the plane crash.
On the day of the anniversary, Martin pointed out that the bombing was not a foreign problem, but a Canadian problem:
"That's right, this is an airliner belonging to Air India, which crashed in the waters of Ireland, but this is a tragedy for Canada. ”