The ink bomb found at a British airport was defused just 17 minutes before it was due to explode, it was claimed yesterday.
Al Qaeda planners believed the plane carrying it would have been over the Atlantic or the U.S. mainland when it was primed to go off in a Lockerbie-style attack.
But the plane made an unscheduled refuelling stop at East Midlands Airport because of the weight of its cargo. Such was the expertise of the bombmaker and the sophistication of the device that it took a bomb disposal expert seven attempts to establish that it was viable and defuse it.
