LONDON — Eight British men planned to set off homemade bombs aboard at least seven airliners flying over the Atlantic to the U.S. and Canada, hoping to kill hundreds in a mammoth terrorist attack, a prosecutor said Thursday as their trial opened.
Prosecutor Peter Wright said the men had plotted to strike United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada flights in summer 2006.
Details of seven specific flights from London’s Heathrow airport to Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington, Toronto and Montreal were stored on a computer memory stick, Wright said in the opening statements of a trial expected to last about six months.
Details also were logged of other flights to Denver, Boston and Miami, he said.
Hundreds of flights were ordered grounded at British airports when police arrested the suspects in August 2006 in the alleged plot to use explosive liquids to blow up planes. Discovery of the purported plot led to tight restrictions on items that passengers carry onto planes.
“The attack they contemplated was not long off” when police swept in, Wright said.
The group hoped to recruit as many as 18 suicide bombers, Wright alleged.
He said the seven targeted flights would have all departed within three hours of one another. Each would have held at least 240 passengers and crew.
All eight men, each with family ties to Pakistan, are accused of conspiracy to murder and a charge of planning an act of violence likely to endanger the safety of an aircraft. Both charges carry maximum sentences of life in prison.
