Terror alert over air luggage grenade

www.thisiscornwall.co.uk 23:59 - 13 February 2003

A man is being questioned by anti-terrorist police after a live grenade was found in a passenger's luggage at Gatwick airport.

The 37-year-old Venezuelan arrived on British Airways flight 2048 from Bogota in Columbia. He was held by Sussex Police and was being taken to a central London police station to be quizzed by detectives from Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch.

Police said the flight stopped at Caracas in Venezuela and BA said it also stopped in Barbados. It was not clear where the man boarded the flight. The grenade was found as he went through Customs so explosives officers were called in and it was found to be live. It was not detonated.

Part of the airport's North Terminal was evacuated during the alert and outbound flights were suspended.

The grenade was believed to have been in the man's hold luggage, not his hand luggage, although that had yet to be officially confirmed.

A BA spokesman said an investigation had begun as to how his baggage had got on to the plane undetected. Seventeen BA flights due to leave from the north terminal were cancelled. They were mostly short-haul departures. Incoming flights were unaffected.

The BA 2048 plane, a Boeing 777 with 125 passengers onboard, landed at Gatwick at 1.23pm.

"The problem did not become apparent until the man went through Customs," a BA spokesman said.

BA screens 100% of baggage before it is allowed on planes, and was tonight checking if the checks were performed by its own staff at Bogota or by local airport staff.

Home Secretary David Blunkett said the arrest at Gatwick, and the unrelated arrest of two men near Heathrow, showed that the terrorist threat did exist and wasn't being made up.