New York – UPI — A bomb packing the power of 20-25 sticks of dynamite exploded in a Trans World Airlines baggage area at LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 and injuring 75 others.
Arms, hands, legs and feet of victims were blown across the downstairs luggage terminal. Police said the powerful bomb was placed in a coin-operated locker near the area where passengers collect baggage.
Flying glass and steel ripped like shrapnel into scores of holiday travelers and airport workers.
A UPI reporter who was waiting for a flight said he saw a “human head — just a head — on a window ledge.”
An anonymous man telephoned UPI in New York, claiming the explosion was set off by the Palestine Liberation Organization. But a PLO spokesman at the United Nations denied any connection with the blast and condemned it.
The toll of death and injured could have been higher if the bomb had gone off moments earlier when 147 passengers aboard two TWA flights landed and picked up their luggage from the blast area.
A PLO spokesman in Beirut said the bomb appeared to be an attempt to embarrass the PLO prior to its participation in the U.N. Security Council Middle East debate beginning in two weeks. He said efforts to link the PLO to the bombing were an “effort to harm the struggle of our people ... at the international level, particularly at the United Nations and at the Security Council.”
This continues the Appeal’s review of news stories and headlines during its Sesquicentennial year.