Air India Flight 182 disaster

      passenger jet explosion off the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985, that claimed the lives of all 329 passengers and crew members. Sikh extremists were accused of sabotaging the Air India aircraft, and one suspect was convicted in 2003.

      Flight 182 was en route from Toronto to London, continuing to Bombay (Mumbai). After a routine stop in Montreal, where Canadian officials removed three suspicious packages from the aircraft, the flight departed for London as scheduled and established communication with Heathrow Airport's tower. But just 45 minutes from its destination, the jet disintegrated in midair. No warning or emergency calls were issued. As the plane disappeared from radar screens, Heathrow staff dispatched emergency rescue crews, but no survivors were found. Only 131 bodies were retrieved from the sea.

      The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but airline officials suspected Sikh extremists of planting a bomb on the aircraft. (In the early 1980s India was embroiled in violent civil unrest between Sikh and Hindu factions.) Five months after the disaster, two suspects were arrested. Canadian police believed that one of the suspects, Talwinder Singh Parmar, had masterminded the attack, but charges against him were ultimately dropped. He was later killed by police in India. Another suspect, Inderjit Singh Reyat, a Sikh residing in Vancouver, eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with the bombing and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2003. Reyat previously had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for helping to build a bomb that killed two baggage handlers at Japan's Narita Airport on the same day as the Flight 182 disaster.

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