Glasgow Aiport has been
closed until further notice after a blazing car crashed into the main terminal
building around 3.15pm today. The incident occurred just a day after
a car bomb attack on central London was foiled. A police spokeswoman said it
was too early to say whether the latest incident was terrorist related. However,
Sky News later reported that the incident was being treated as a terrorist
attack. Witnesses said a blazing Cherokee jeep containing two men crashed into
the doors of the terminal building. A man with his clothes on fire got out of
the vehicle and was restrained by passengers. One eyewitness said : “Some
holidaymaker tried to restrain him, then the police came over and wrestled him
to the ground – the fire was burning through his clothes – and finally put him
out with a fire extinguisher.”
Another eyewitness said one
of the men had tried to open the boot of the vehicle but was not successful. “Police
tried to restrain him but the guy was quite strong and he started fighting off
the police,” he said. Eyewitness Fiona Tracey, who had been picking up her
daughter from the airport, said she believed people were injured in the
incident. “There were people injured, because I’ve seen them lying on the
road,” she said. “I was standing next to departures, I heard a great
big massive bang, and then all the folk from departures were running through
arrivals.” A spokesman for the airport’s operators, the British Airports
Authority, said emergency services were at the scene. “A car is on fire at
the entrance to the terminal and there is considerable smoke damage to the
terminal. The terminal has been evacuated as a result of this and all flights
have now been suspended,” the spokesman said. Glasgow Airport is the
busiest of Scotland’s international airports with approximately 8.8 million
passengers a year travelling through it. “This is the start of the busy
summer holiday period, although Saturdays are less busy than week days. But
this will cause disruption and our advice to passengers is to check with their
airline to establish if their flight will be operating.” Two people have
allegedly been arrested by police. Downing Street said that Prime Minister
Gordon Brown was “being kept aware” of the situation in Glasgow and
the Home Office said it was monitoring events, which were being handled by
Strathclyde Police. Brown is to chair a meeting of the Government’s Cobra
emergency contingencies committee this evening to discuss the incident. A Home
Office spokesman said that the official security alert level remains at
“severe”, as it has been for some time. Labour’s shadow justice
minister in Scotland, Margaret Curran, said: “This is obviously a very
serious incident that alerts us all to the threat to our safety and security. “We
are relieved that as yet there seem to be no serious injuries. But our thoughts
are with those who have witnessed this terrible event. We obviously condemn
those who risk the safety of others.” The Queen is in Scotland today for
the inauguration of Scotland’s third Parliament, the first to be under
Nationalist minority control.
Source: The Times (UK).
Comment:
The question now is: is it
a terrorist attack or not? Airports are large symbols of western technology,
and very vulnerable to attacks…
I hope for the British
people it’s not again something that gives a signal of an upcoming wave
of attacks…most people fear attacks in public transportation, airports,…
And dying in an airplane is
certainly not my idea of having a quiet death…
technorati tags:Glasgow, airport, Scotland, UK, Great, Britain, Great-Britain, terrorists, attack, car, accident, incident
