The flight from Montreal to London was just over 6 hours, and at the beginning of the journey the passengers were served with a hot meal and drinks. For those who could remain awake a Hindi movie was showing, but most dozed quietly in the smooth flying condtions. Outside the air temperature was 47 below zero. In the cockpit, the flight crew looked out over a clear sky, and as the sun peeked it`s head above the eastern horizon, some low lying cloud could be seen far below. Apart from the delay over fitting the broken engine, all was normal and routine.
Six thousand miles away on the other side of the world, and in another time zone, ground staff at Tokyo`s Narita Airport unloaded baggage containers from Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 003which had recently arrived from Vancouver. With good winds on the trip the 747 made up some time and had landed 10mins ahead of schedule at 14.15 hrs local Japanese time. Trucks ferried containers to the ground floor of the terminal and luggage handlers removed the bags for passenger collection. The scene was typical of a busy international airport, but it was not to remain so for long. As bags were being unloaded from a container, one piece of luggage exploded causing a blast which shook the whole airport. a hole was blown in the concrete floor, and the unloading area was extensively damaged. Two Japanese airport staff were killed and another four seriously injured. CP Air's 747, Flight 003 from Vancouver, had arrived with a total of 390 people onboard, and had the aircraft been just half an hour late, there would have been a terrible disaster. There was no doubt that the force of the blast was sufficient to cause the destruction to something even as large as a 747.
Six thousand miles away on the other side of the world, and in another time zone, ground staff at Tokyo`s Narita Airport unloaded baggage containers from Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 003which had recently arrived from Vancouver. With good winds on the trip the 747 made up some time and had landed 10mins ahead of schedule at 14.15 hrs local Japanese time. Trucks ferried containers to the ground floor of the terminal and luggage handlers removed the bags for passenger collection. The scene was typical of a busy international airport, but it was not to remain so for long. As bags were being unloaded from a container, one piece of luggage exploded causing a blast which shook the whole airport. a hole was blown in the concrete floor, and the unloading area was extensively damaged. Two Japanese airport staff were killed and another four seriously injured. CP Air's 747, Flight 003 from Vancouver, had arrived with a total of 390 people onboard, and had the aircraft been just half an hour late, there would have been a terrible disaster. There was no doubt that the force of the blast was sufficient to cause the destruction to something even as large as a 747.
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