Police admit Belfast Airport car park bomb errors
24.04.11
The PSNI has admitted that no security cordons were put in place following warnings of a dissident republican car bomb at Belfast International Airport, which was then left in the car park undetected for 906 days, the Belfast Telegraph reports. Just weeks after the undiscovered bomb was planted in 2008 the then US President George W Bush flew into the airport where he was met by ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Following reports by the Belfast Telegraph that the bomb lay undetected in the airport’s long-stay car park for two-and-a half-years, Chief Constable Matt Baggott has told the Policing Board that police received three warnings that a device had been planted. He said the first warning contained little information. The second call gave details of a vehicle, which were wrong and the third call identified a vehicle by make and model only.
The Belfast Telegraph revealed last month that the pipe-bomb type device had been left in a car at the long-stay car park on May 7, 2008. It was not discovered until October 30, 2010 when airport staff became suspicious about the car as they removed it from the car park for non payment of fees. The bomb failed to detonate properly because of a fault with a timer.
Policing Board member Jimmy Spratt described the incident as a ‘frightening security blunder’.
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