Al Qaeda Threat Led to Flight Cancellations

Jan. 2, 2004 -- The decision to cancel some British Airways flights on the London-Washington route in the last two days was based in part on information that a team of al Qaeda operatives planned to take over a flight during the New Year's period and crash it into a U.S. target, ABCNEWS has learned.

On New Year's Day and again today, British Airways canceled Flight 223 from London's Heathrow Airport to Washington Dulles International Airport, and the return flight from Washington to London was canceled Thursday evening, as terror concerns continue to disrupt international air travel.

The airline announced today it was canceling Saturday's flight, BA263, from Heathrow to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for security reasons. It did not elaborate.

Intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that the cancellations on the London-Washington route were due to information from a "human source" overseas and analysis of other intelligence. The human source, whose credibility U.S. officials have been unable to confirm, said plans were in place to specifically take over Flight 223 and crash it into a U.S. target.

British defense analyst Paul Beaver said intelligence sources told him the target could have been Washington.

"There seems to be very hard intelligence coming from the United States that there is a serious threat to Flight 223 — the British Airways flight," Beaver said. "It's flight-related, not passenger-related or freight-related. And this is related to something which may be targeted in the Washington area — some sort of spectacular … either flying the aircraft into something or detonating it over Washington itself."

On Wednesday, New Year's Eve, the same flight was kept on the runway for three hours after landing at Dulles while security officials questioned passengers on board. The jet had been escorted to the airport by two U.S. F-16 fighters.

A later London-Washington British Airways flight, BA225, was allowed to make the trip today, with many people from the earlier canceled flight on board. Another London-Washington flight, BA217, landed safely at Dulles at 4:14 p.m. ET today.

The airline's other flights on the route have also received heightened scrutiny. British Airways Flight 216 from Washington to London was delayed Thursday night and passengers were rescreened for security reasons before the flight departed.

Beaver told Britain's Press Association that the information given to British Airways by the British government probably originally came from American intelligence.

"There is good and precise intelligence that there is more than one al Qaeda or al Qaeda-like group operating against the U.S.," he said. "One is based in Central America and the other is based in Europe — in London or Paris."

A British Airways spokesman said today's London-Washington flight was canceled following security advice from the British government.

The British Airways cancellations are the most recent in a series of delayed and canceled flights over the holidays, since the Department of Homeland Security announced concerns that terrorists could be planning an attack around New Year's.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the North American Aerospace Defense Command has recently scrambled several fighter jets to escort commercial flights, including at least one in Los Angeles in broad daylight.

On Wednesday and again on Thursday, Aeromexico Flight 490 between Mexico City and Los Angeles was canceled after intelligence was received regarding possible terrorist activity. U.S. authorities had said on Wednesday they would not allow the flight to land in Los Angeles.

Also on Wednesday, an Air France flight from Paris to New York made an unscheduled landing in Newfoundland, Canada, after airline officials determined that there was luggage on board that did not belong to any of the passengers on the flight.

According to Air France, a regular passenger on the airline checked in for the flight, but before takeoff decided not to travel. However, some of his bags ended up on board and when the airline discovered that, officials decided to land the plane and check it out.

The airline canceled six of its flights between Paris and Los Angeles last week, after the FBI warned that names on those flights' passenger lists matched names on the bureau's watch lists.

French officials now say that they were all cases of mistaken identity, in some cases as a result of mistaken transliteration of Arabic names.

The ABCNEWS I-Team contributed to this report.