WE COULD HAVE BOMBED ANY TARGET IN LONDON
www.mirror.co.uk Feb 28 2003 By Gary Jones
A TERRIFYING security loophole was exposed by a Daily Mirror sight-seeing flight over London yesterday.
We hired a helicopter without identity or luggage checks and flew over many of the capital's landmarks - including the Houses of Parliament, Canary Wharf and the City of London.
TARGET: Parliament
Had we been terrorists, it would have been easy to overpower the pilot and send the helicopter crashing onto the House of Commons or Big Ben.
We could have hurled a bomb or unleashed a deadly poison cloud.
Buckingham Palace was within close range. And at one point, the helicopter hovered over Parliament at 1,500ft.
We passed the Commons three times, causing so much noise that guests at a special lunch attended by Lord Tebbit could hardly hear themselves speak.
Intelligence sources have warned that al-Qaeda terrorists might attempt a propaganda suicide bombing of Westminster.
Helicopter sight-seeing tours were banned briefly after the September 11 attacks in America.
In the US, tough security measures were introduced following the air hijackings - including stringent identity and bag checks for helicopter flights.
But there were no questions asked when photographer Emma Cattell and myself arrived at Biggin Hill in Kent for yesterday's trip. We didn't even give our full names.
I had phoned Biggin Hill Helicopters at about 10.30am saying I wanted to hire a helicopter for a sight-seeing tour as a birthday present for my girlfriend.
At first I was told one wasn't available because of a training lesson but I was called back shortly afterwards on a mobile phone to be told: "If you can get here by 1.15pm you'll be OK."
After parking directly outside BHH's prefabricated building, I was met by a man called Will, who said: "You must be Gary."
After a short briefing about the flight, involving how to wear seatbelts correctly and avoid the rotor blades, the four-seater helicopter landed to pick us up.
I had a black bag with strap slung over my shoulder and my colleague a large handbag containing a digital camera. At no stage were the bags checked for their contents. They were not even given a cursory glance.
The only mention made of my bag - which could easily have concealed a gun or a gas canister - was when I laid it at my feet.
I was asked by the pilot called Simon, in his late 20s, what it contained. I replied: "A camera." I was told to put the bag in the back because it could become entangled in the pedals.
No check had been made on either of our identities before we boarded the flight. Apart from the credit card details which I had given over the phone earlier, BHH had no information about us.
It was only after we had landed and were driving back to London that an address was asked for so a receipt could be given for the cost of the flight.
The helicopter emblazoned with the sign LBC - the capital's independent radio station which hires the chopper for its travel reports - flew directly towards Canary Wharf before following the path of the River Thames.
The spectacular journey passed the City of London and was supposed to end at Battersea power station.
But our trip was interrupted by a Ministry of Defence Chinook helicopter taking special services personnel to the Duke of York's barracks at Chelsea.
The distinctive dark green MoD chopper was given priority and flew beneath us a couple of kilometres away as we hovered above the Commons.
Helicopter sight-seeing trips follow a pre-determined path into the capital, twisting and turning along the Thames.
But with the Houses of Parliament directly on the river, a terrorist would not need to manoeuvre the helicopter any great distance to hit the target. Security services and anti- terrorist police have warned of the threat of attack.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens says: "It is not a question of if, but when."
Earlier this month troops and tanks guarded Heathrow Airport after warnings of a possible surface-to-air missile attack on aircraft. A grenade was found in the possession of a passenger who flew into Gatwick from Venezuela.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said at the time: "First this reinforces that we really do have a problem.
"People have been saying that it doesn't exist. Second, it means that our security services are on the ball. Third, it has given us leads and over the next few days we need to follow them through."
Anti-terror police have a massive ongoing offensive against alleged British supporters of Osama bin Laden.
A joint investigation between police, MI5 and MI6 continues to target bin Laden loyalists in Britain and around the world.
UK security forces are hunting scores of British Muslims trained by bin Laden and suspected of plotting attacks here. It has emerged that the names of almost 1,200 suspects are known to the intelligence services.
Some who survived the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan are thought to have sneaked into Britain where they have gone to ground but remain sympathetic to al-Qaeda which has made Britain its number one target in Europe.
Within weeks of the attacks in New York and Washington, three Algerians were arrested in Leicester, suspected of being involved in a plot to crash a helicopter into the US embassy building in Paris.
They were all members of an Algerian Islamic terror group, Tafkir-Wal-Hijra, and were captured after the arrest of the group's leader Djamel Begal in Dubai.
Begal, 35, had confessed to police that he ran three groups in Europe, including one in Leicester where he had lived for a short time in the 1990s.
Detectives in the Midlands have investigated the backgrounds of hundreds of Algerian asylum-seekers who have entered Britain from the strife-torn country.
Some are believed to be belong to the fanatical Armed Islamic Group (GIA) which aims to overthrow the Algerian regime and replace it with a strict Islamic state.
A source in the Birmingham Algerian community said: "Mostly they help to raise funds through credit card and passport frauds but there are others who are more actively involved in organising terrorist activities."