Philippine Airlines Flight 434
The interior of the aircraft following the incident. | |
| Bombing | |
|---|---|
| Date | December 11, 1994 |
| Summary | Bomb planted by Ramzi Yousef as a test for the Bojinka plot |
| Site | Minami Daito Island, Okinawa, Japan 25°50′45″N 131°14′30″E / 25.84583°N 131.24167°E |
| Aircraft | |
| EI-BWF, the aircraft involved in the bombing, seen in December 1988 | |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 747-283BM Combi |
| Operator | Philippine Airlines |
| IATA flight No. | PR434 |
| ICAO flight No. | PAL434 |
| Call sign | PHILIPPINE 434 |
| Registration | EI-BWF |
| Flight origin | Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Pasay, Philippines |
| Stopover | Mactan–Cebu International Airport, Cebu, Philippines |
| Destination | Narita International Airport, Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupants | 293 |
| Passengers | 273 |
| Crew | 20 |
| Fatalities | 1 |
| Injuries | 10 |
| Survivors | 292 |
Philippine Airlines Flight 434, sometimes referred to as PAL434 or PR434, was a scheduled flight on December 11, 1994, from Manila to Tokyo with a quick stopover in Cebu on a Boeing 747-283B that was seriously damaged by a bomb, killing one passenger and damaging vital control systems, although the plane was in a repairable state. The bombing was a test run of the unsuccessful Bojinka terrorist attacks. The Boeing 747 was flying the second leg of a route from Mactan–Cebu International Airport in Cebu, Philippines to Narita International Airport, in Tokyo, Japan. After the bomb detonated, 58-year-old veteran pilot Captain Eduardo "Ed" Reyes was able to land the aircraft, saving it and the remaining passengers and crew.
Authorities later discovered that Ramzi Yousef, a passenger on the aircraft's prior flight leg from Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport, had placed the explosive. Yousef boarded the flight under the fake Italian name "Armaldo Forlani", an incorrect spelling of the name of the Italian legislator and Prime Minister of Italy from 1980 to 1981 Arnaldo Forlani, in order not to get caught. Yousef was later convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.