On June 23, 1985, Air India Flight 182, operating as ‘Kanishka’, was destroyed by a bomb in mid-air while flying from Montreal to London. The explosion killed all 329 passengers and crew aboard, making it one of the deadliest terrorist acts in Canadian history. The catastrophe occurred 45 minutes before the plane was supposed to land at London’s Heathrow Airport.
A bomb hidden in a bag put into cargo during a stopover in Vancouver exploded over the Atlantic Ocean in Irish airspace. The explosion occurred as Air India Flight 182 was traveling at 31,000 feet. According to the foreign media, just 131 bodies were recovered from the sea.
An hour before Air India flight 182 was shot down, a device exploded inside Tokyo’s Narita airport terminal. The explosive was placed in a backpack and checked onto a Canadian Pacific Airlines flight from Vancouver scheduled for Air India Flight 301 to Bangkok. The incident occurred during the transfer to the aircraft at Narita, killing two Japanese luggage handlers. Investigations linked both bombings, dubbed the “Kanishka case.”
