A Northwest Airlines passenger from Nigeria, who said he was acting on al-Qaida's instructions, set off an explosive device Friday in a failed terrorist attack on the plane as it was landing in Detroit, federal officials said.
Flight 253 with 278 passengers aboard was 20 minutes from the airport when it sounded like a firecracker had exploded, witnesses said. One passenger jumped over others and tried to subdue the man. Shortly afterward, the suspect was taken to a front row seat with his pants cut off and his legs burned.
It sounds like there was a partial detonation and then a passenger initiated action to subdue the terrorist.
One passenger is apparently here in Ann Arbor receiving medical attention.
We are lucky that plane and 278 passengers didn't all die. The only thing that saved them was the failure of the explosives to work properly or the failure of the terrorist to set off the explosives.
The passengers were certainly brave to counter-attack, but there would have been no counter-attack but for the failure of the bomb to go off.
UPDATE: It appears that the passenger being treated here is the terrorist.
