George Peter Metesky, better known as the Mad Bomber, was an American electrician and mechanic who terrorized New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he planted in theaters, terminals, libraries and offices. Bombs were left in phone booths, storage lockers and restrooms in public buildings, including Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Public Library, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the RCA Building, and in the New York City Subway. Metesky also bombed movie theaters, where he cut into seat upholstery and slipped his explosive devices inside.
JAT Flight 367 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 aircraft which exploded shortly after overflying NDB Hermsdorf, East Germany, while en route from Stockholm, Sweden, to Belgrade, SFR Yugoslavia, on 26 January 1972. The aircraft, piloted by Captain Ludvik Razdrih and First Officer Ratko Mihić, broke into three pieces and spun out of control, crashing near the village of Srbská Kamenice in Czechoslovakia. Of the 28 on board, 27 were killed upon ground impact and one Serbian crew member, Vesna Vulović (1950–2016), survived. She holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute at 10,160 m (33,330 ft).
Vesna Vulović was a Serbian flight attendant who survived the highest fall without a parachute: 10.16 kilometres or 33,338 feet. She was the sole survivor after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash near Srbská Kamenice, Czechoslovakia. Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. The Yugoslav authorities suspected that émigré Croatian nationalists were to blame, but no one was ever arrested.
Julienne Bušić is an American writer, activist, and the widow and co-conspirator of Zvonko Bušić. She was arrested with Bušić in 1976 after hijacking TWA Flight 355 and sentenced to life in prison, with early parole.
On 30 December 2006, a van bomb exploded in the Terminal 4 parking area at the Madrid–Barajas Airport in Spain, killing two and injuring 52. On 9 January 2007, the Basque nationalist and separatist organisation ETA claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack, one of the most powerful carried out by ETA, damaged the airport terminal and destroyed the entire parking structure. The bombing ended a nine-month ceasefire declared by the armed organisation and prompted the government to halt plans for negotiations with the organisation. Despite the attack, ETA claimed that the ceasefire was still in place and regretted the death of civilians. The organisation eventually announced the end of the ceasefire in June 2007.
The Zagreb rocket attacks were two rocket attacks conducted by the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina that used multiple rocket launchers to strike the Croatian capital of Zagreb during the Croatian War of Independence. The attack killed seven and wounded over 200 Croatian and foreign civilians and was carried out on 2 May and 3 May 1995 as retaliation for the Croatian army's offensive in Operation Flash. The rocket attacks deliberately targeted civilian locations. Zagreb was the largest of several cities hit by the attack. It was not the only instance in the war in Croatia that cluster bombs were used in combat.
The Glasgow Airport attack was a terrorist ramming attack which occurred on 30 June 2007, at 15:11 BST, when a dark green Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane canisters was driven at the glass doors of the Glasgow Airport terminal and set ablaze. The car's driver was severely burnt in the ensuing fire, and five members of the public were injured, none seriously. Some injuries were sustained by those assisting the police in detaining the occupants. A close link was quickly established to the 2007 London car bombs the previous day.
The Croatian National Resistance, also referred to as Otpor, was an Ustaša organization founded in 1955 in Spain. The HNO ran an armed organisation, Drina, which continued to be active well into the 1970s.
TWA Flight 355 was a domestic Trans World Airlines flight that was hijacked on September 10, 1976, by five "Fighters for Free Croatia", a group seeking Croatian independence from Yugoslavia.
The Orly Airport attack was the 15 July 1983 bombing of a Turkish Airlines check-in counter at Orly Airport in Paris, by the Armenian militant organization ASALA as part of its campaign for the recognition of and reparations for the Armenian genocide. The explosion killed eight people and injured 55.
Zvonko Bušić was a Croatian responsible for hijacking TWA Flight 355 in September 1976. He was subsequently convicted of air piracy and spent 32 years in prison in the United States before being released on parole and deported in July 2008.
The July 1979 Madrid bombings were a series of bomb attacks carried out by ETA political-military (ETA-pm), a faction of the armed Basque separatist group ETA. The attacks, consisting of coordinated bombings in Barajas Airport and the train stations of Atocha and Chamartín, killed 7 people and injured a further 100. The bombings occurred a day after two attacks in Bilbao and San Sebastian, with both attacks killing two people.
The Heathrow Airport bombing occurred on 20 April 1984, when a bomb exploded in the baggage area of Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport. The bomb exploded at 7:55 pm and injured 23 people. Commander William Hucklesby, at the time head of Scotland Yard's anti-terror branch, reported that the detonated device was constructed using two pounds (910 g) of commercial or military grade explosives. A hospital spokesperson stated that all but five victims were released shortly after being treated for minor scrapes, cuts, and bruises.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by Ramzi Yousef and associates against the United States on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, New York City. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to make the North Tower collapse onto the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it killed six people, including a pregnant woman, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.
The Atatürk Airport attack, consisting of shootings and suicide bombings, occurred on 28 June 2016 at Atatürk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey. Gunmen armed with automatic weapons and explosive belts staged a simultaneous attack at the international terminal of Terminal 2. Three attackers and forty-five other people were killed, with more than 230 people injured. Monitoring group Turkey Blocks identified widespread internet restrictions on incoming and outgoing media affecting the entire country in the aftermath of the attack.
On 29 November 1975, a bomb exploded in the arrivals terminal of Dublin Airport, killing a man and injuring nine other people. The Ulster Defence Association (UDA), a loyalist paramilitary group from Northern Ireland, claimed responsibility for the bombing. It was one of a series of loyalist bomb attacks in the Republic of Ireland between the late 1960s and mid-1970s.
The 1974 Los Angeles International Airport bombing occurred on August 6, 1974, in the overseas passenger terminal lobby of Pan American World Airways at the Los Angeles International Airport. The attack killed three people and injured 36 others.
Muharem Kurbegovic is a Yugoslav–American aerospace engineer and domestic terrorist who was convicted for committing a string of lone wolf arsons and bombings in Los Angeles, California in 1973 and 1974, his most notable act being the 1974 Los Angeles International Airport bombing that killed three people and injured 36 others.
