Air India

Two suspects, one reportedly a Vancouver businessman, were arrested in connection with the 1985 bombing of an Air India airliner off the coast of Ireland, Canadian police said. They are the first arrests made in connection with the bombing, which killed 329 people and was the deadliest-ever act of aviation sabotage. A spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said two men are Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malick.

NEW DELHI -- India's lumbering legal system delivered its final verdict Thursday in a 1993 serial bombing attack in Mumbai that killed 257 people and injured 700, upholding the death penalty for one of the accused masterminds and reducing to life in prison from death the sentences against 10 others. The 10 don't deserve execution because they were pawns in the plot, the Supreme Court ruled about two decades after the deadliest terrorist attack in India's history. The court blamed Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency for training the attackers and providing them with weapons, an accusation Pakistan has long denied.

Canadian officials said Monday that they are investigating the likelihood that terrorists caused the crash of an Air India jumbo jet on a flight from Canada to London that killed all 329 aboard. Sean Brady, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, said in a telephone interview from Ottawa that "there is enough circumstantial evidence" to indicate that the crash of Air India Flight 182 Sunday off the coast of Ireland "was a terrorist incident."

A friend planning a trip to India sent around a list of the food choices available on AirIndia . The number of choices is truly mindboggling. Who to be? Vegetarian Hindu, kosher, Moslem, vegetarian Oriental? Bland -- vegetarian or non-vegetarian?         Vegetarian Hindu Meal/Asian Vegetarian/Hindu Vegetarian         Baby Meal/Infant Food (Vegetarian/Non-Vegetarian)         Bland Meal (Vegetarian/Non-Vegetarian)         Child Meal (Vegetarian/Non-Vegetarian)

Sunday's crash of an Air India Boeing 747 was the worst disaster in India's civil aviation history and the fourth involving the country's international flag carrier since the airline was established in 1953. Questions regarding Air India's safety procedures arose after two of the airline's three previous crashes. Air India Flight 182 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday as it approached the Irish coast on a flight from Canada.

The only man ever convicted in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people must spend another two years in prison, Canada's National Parole Board decided Friday. Inderjit Singh Reyat's claims that he is no longer the "young and naive" terrorist who helped to orchestrate the worst mass killing in Canadian history didn't ring true for the three-member parole board panel, said lead member Michael Crowley.

A bomb was found aboard an Air-India jetliner minutes before the plane was to have taken off for London and New York with 407 people on board, police and airline officials said. The bomb, designed to go off by remote control, was disarmed at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. In Srinagar, center of a Kashmiri secessionist revolt against Indian rule, a caller telephoned a news agency to say a militant group planted the bomb.

An Air India Boeing 747 jumbo jetliner flying at 31,000 feet went down without warning into the North Atlantic about 120 miles southwest of Ireland on Sunday, apparently killing all 329 passengers and crew on board. Authorities suspected that a bomb caused what was called the third worst disaster in aviation history.

Air India Ltd. said Tuesday that it would buy 50 Boeing Co. passenger jets valued at as much as $6.9 billion. It was the aircraft maker's second major order in two days. Air India said it would acquire 23 model 777s and 27 model 787s. The purchase requires the approval of India's government, which owns the airline. On Monday, Air Canada ordered 32 planes valued as much as $6.1 billion, including 14 of the 787s.

A Canadian judge Wednesday cleared two Sikhs of involvement in the 1985 bombing of an Air India jetliner that killed 329 people, the deadliest such terrorist strike. British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Ian Bruce Josephson found Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri not guilty of murder and conspiracy in connection with the bombing over the Atlantic, as well as a related explosion at Tokyo's Narita International Airport that killed two people.

NEW DELHI - Hundreds of Air India pilots did not report to work Thursday, the fourth day of a sickout to protest their treatment by management, a dispute that so far has resulted in the cancellation of numerous international flights and cost about 45 pilots their jobs. Officials said the Mumbai-based airline was forced to cancel more than 35 international flights this week, including several bound for New York and Frankfurt, because of the protest. India's aviation minister called the sickout illegal, the airline said it had fired some pilots, and a high court called for negotiations.

Searchers combed a steep, wooded hillside in southern India on Saturday for the remains of 158 passengers and crew of an Air India Express flight and clues to the cause of the country's worst aviation accident in a decade. With the voice recorder not yet recovered, it was unclear why Flight IX-812, carrying mostly migrant workers returning from the Persian Gulf, overshot the runway in Mangalore and plunged down the hillside early Saturday. Officials said the weather was good at the time, and there were no indications of mechanical problems or a communications mix-up with air traffic control.

An Air India flight from Dubai crashed Saturday morning in the city of Mangalore after apparently overshooting the runway, killing at least 160 people. Televised images showed rescuers carrying limp bodies up a wooded slope and wreckage still burning hours after the crash, with bodies and the nearby ground covered with white foam emergency workers used to fight the blaze. There were reportedly 166 passengers and crew on the Boeing 737-800 jet, which was believed to be 2 or 3 years old, a relatively new addition to the company's fleet.

The sight of airline cabin crews trying to mollify enraged passengers has become all too common. But a recent Air India flight added a twist when crew members mid-flight started punching each other in front of startled passengers. Accounts of what happened differ now that everyone's back on the ground. Exactly who started the brawl and why got a bit lost in the clouds, though one flight attendant has accused a crew member of trying to molest her. What no one disputes is that with New Delhi-bound Flight IC-844 cruising at 30,000 feet over Pakistan around 4 a.m. Saturday, the cockpit and cabin crews broke into fisticuffs.

India's two state-run carriers will merge to create a larger airline capable of competing in an aviation market that is becoming more open to private and foreign players, the aviation minister said. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said a ministerial panel had approved the merger between Air India and Indian Airlines. Air India operates on international routes, and Indian Airlines mostly focuses on travel within India and to some neighboring countries.

Canadian police destroyed a package found on an Air India flight bound for England. The airliner turned back to Toronto after a passenger discovered the package Monday night in a washroom. Police said the bomb squad was unsure what the object was, but destroyed it as a precaution. About 150 passengers spent the night at Toronto's Pearson airport, an airport spokesman said.

It started Monday when their first plane blew a tire on takeoff, dumped fuel over the ocean and circled back to Los Angeles International Airport to land in a spray of sparks, shedding 200 pounds of rubber and metal on the runway. On Tuesday, hundreds of Air India passengers tried again, settling into a different jumbo jet with "Your Palace in the Sky" scrolled in red script near the tail. This time, one of the engines wouldn't start. For about five hours, travelers sat in the sweltering plane.

NEW DELHI - Hundreds of Air India pilots did not report to work Thursday, the fourth day of a sickout to protest their treatment by management, a dispute that so far has resulted in the cancellation of numerous international flights and cost about 45 pilots their jobs. Officials said the Mumbai-based airline was forced to cancel more than 35 international flights this week, including several bound for New York and Frankfurt, because of the protest. India's aviation minister called the sickout illegal, the airline said it had fired some pilots, and a high court called for negotiations.

Like most of her classmates in flight attendant school, Sandhya Chatribin has never been on an airplane. At least not one that can fly. The 19-year-old came here from the western coastal state of Goa the way most Indians travel long distances, in a rattling train that shimmied and squeaked its way hundreds of miles across the subcontinent.

The only man ever convicted in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people must spend another two years in prison, Canada's National Parole Board decided Friday. Inderjit Singh Reyat's claims that he is no longer the "young and naive" terrorist who helped to orchestrate the worst mass killing in Canadian history didn't ring true for the three-member parole board panel, said lead member Michael Crowley.