The Attacks
With the Sri Lankan military on the verge of winning the war, the Tamil Tigers launched their first suicide air attack on the night of February 20, 2009. Two aircraft took off from a narrow road in Puthukkudiyirippu in the Mullaithivu District, and were sighted by Sri Lanka Army personnel operating along the front lines around 8:30 pm. The aircraft were soon detected by a Sri Lanka Air Force radar installation at Vavuniya. The aircraft, which had switched off their lights to avoid detection, proceeded towards Mannar and then southwards towards Colombo. Twenty minutes after the detection of the aircraft, an F-7 interceptor of the Sri Lanka Air Force was scrambled to intercept the planes, but was unable to do so due to the low altitude of the Tamil Tiger aircraft. The two Tamil Tiger aircraft then flew past the Bandaranaike International Airport, and three international flights were subsequently canceled. At 9:47 pm the aircraft entered airspace above Colombo, and air defense systems were activated, immediately lighting up the sky with red and amber anti-aircraft gun fire. As a precaution, the power supply to the city of Colombo was cut, plunging the city into darkness.
As one of the aircraft circled over Colombo Harbor and took a turn over Galle Face Green, it was hit by anti-aircraft gunfire. At 9:51 pm it crashed into the 12th floor of the 15 story Inland Revenue Department (IRD) building, which is located on Sir Chittampalam Gardiner Mawatha. The impact triggered the explosives packed into the plane, setting part of the building on fire. Two people were killed and over 50 injured in the crash, and a military statement said "parts of strewn pieces of flesh said to be that of the Tiger pilot" were found inside the building. The engine of the plane was found on the 12th floor of the building.
Unable to proceed due to heavy anti-aircraft gunfire, the second aircraft headed back towards the Air Force base located next to Bandaranaike International Airport. However the aircraft was shot down before it reached the base, crashing at 9:59 pm. Six civilians were injured in the crash. The wreckage of the aircraft, along with the body of the pilot, was found by the military. The pilot had two cyanide capsules and a powerful bomb attached to him.
Investigations conducted at the crash sites indicated that for the first time, the Tamil Tiger aircraft were packed with explosives, rather than carrying bombs as they had previously done. It was estimated that there were 215 kg of C-4 plastic explosives inside each plane.
Read more about this topic: 2009 Suicide Air Raid On Colombo
Famous quotes containing the word attacks:
“The rebel, unlike the revolutionary, does not attempt to undermine the social order as a whole. The rebel attacks the tyrant; the revolutionary attacks tyranny. I grant that there are rebels who regard all governments as tyrannical; nonetheless, it is abuses that they condemn, not power itself. Revolutionaries, on the other hand, are convinced that the evil does not lie in the excesses of the constituted order but in order itself. The difference, it seems to me, is considerable.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“There exists, at the bottom of all abasement and misfortune, a last extreme which rebels and joins battle with the forces of law and respectability in a desperate struggle, waged partly by cunning and partly by violence, at once sick and ferocious, in which it attacks the prevailing social order with the pin-pricks of vice and the hammer-blows of crime.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)