Mid-day

Mumbai, Jun 5: International Airport Ltd (MIAl) officials will have to tighten their seatbelts following an attempt to blow up a fuel pipeline at New York’s JFK airport on Saturday June 2.

There are 25 tankers storing aviation fuel at the airport and sources admit each of these 10 to 12 metre-high 20,000-litre tankers has enough fuel to blow up the entire airport.

“The tankers are close to the terminal building and can be easily targeted, causing extensive damage. It is better if the fuel is stored underground,” said a civil aviation source.

A senior official of the Central Industrial Security Force, which is responsible for security at the country’s airports, also admitted that the oil tankers were terror targets. “We cannot do much about the tankers as they provide fuel to planes and have to be located close to airports. But after the New York plot, we will certainly review the security at the tankers,” he added.

The JFK terror plot involved blowing up a 40-mile pipeline that takes fuel from a facility in Linden in New Jersey through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens to JFK airport.