Detailed chain of events

 

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23 years old, Nigerian origin

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23 old Nigerian passport holder, is the suspected terrorist who attempted to blow up the Northwest flight 253.

Abdulmutallab, was born in Nigeria to a rich family, spending most of his childhood living in the Muslim majority district of the country. His mother was born in Yemen.

As a teenager, Umar was well known among his friends as a devout Muslim. At the age of 18 he moved to Sana’a, Yemen to study Arabic and attend Islamic lectures at Iman University.

In 2005, Abdulmutallab moved to London, UK for 3 years to study engineering at University College London, graduating in 2008. During his university years he was actively attending Muslim lectures and gatherings and even became president of the Islamic Society at his school.

Abdulmutallab spent the first half of 2009 in Dubai studying a Master's for an international business degree program at the University of Wollongongat.

Having failed to gain an entry visa back into the UK, he returned to Yemen in July 2009. It is understood that he had contact with Islamic extremists and became obsessed with the idea that his destiny was to become a Muslim saint by performing a Jihad act.

In October 2009, he delivered a message to his father saying that he terminates any contact with his family and that he is “no longer his son”.

On November 19th, 2009, his father made a report to the U.S embassy in Abuja, Nigeria about his son’s “extreme religious views”. Following the report, Abdulmutallab was placed on the US's 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center.  No further actions were made by U.S authorities to prevent his entry to the U.S or refuse him a visa.

Abdulmutallab, left Yemen on December 7th flying to Ethiopia and then to Ghana. On December 17th he purchased a round trip ticket on the route Lagos-Amsterdam-Detroit from a KLM office in Accra, Ghana for 2831$ cash.

On December 24th, Abdulmutallab left Lagos, Nigeria on KLM flight 588 to Amsterdam.  He then transferred onto Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25th. On board there were 289 people including crew members and pilots.

In Amsterdam, Abdulmutallab checked in with only carry-on luggage despite his return flight from the U.S being scheduled two weeks later, on the 8th of January.

In both airports, Lagos and Amsterdam, he preceded all security checks with no findings. 

The dramatic incident began a short time before the plane arrived at its destination.  Abdulmutallab spent approximately 20 minutes in the bathroom before returning  to his seat pulling a blanket over himself and igniting a detonation device for the explosive he held in his underwear. According to witnesses and from information publicly reported the explosive device was a small pack of powder explosive called PETN which is the major ingredient for plastic explosives. The pack of explosive was sewn to his underwear and he attempted to detonate the explosive with a type of acid in a plastic syringe expected to cause a chemical reaction and ignite the main charge. There was 80 grams of explosive sewn in the underwear, an amount that could cause a fatal explosion and bring down the plane.

An unexpected result occurred and the detonation device did not ignite the main charge causing only fire and cracking sounds. 

Several passengers and crew members noticed the fire, suspecting immediately that it was an act of terrorism. One of the passengers, a Dutch man, who was sitting on the same row on the other side of the plane, ran towards the suspect overpowering him and attempting to extinguish the fire. Then with the help of other passengers and crew members he pulled the suspect to the front of the plane isolating him from other passengers and putting him in handcuffs until landing.

 

Jasper Schuringa, 38 years old Dutch passenger who bravely tackled the terrorist and helped this incident to end up with no fatalities