Northwest Airlines Flight 253
2009 failed airliner bombing attempt
The attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 occurred on December 25, 2009, aboard an Airbus A330 as it prepared to land at Detroit Metropolitan Airport following a transatlantic flight from Amsterdam. Attributed to the terrorist organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the act was undertaken by 23-year-old Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab using chemical explosives sewn to his underwear. These circumstances, including the date, led to Abdulmutallab being commonly nicknamed either the "Underwear bomber" or "Christmas Day bomber" by American media outlets. If successful, it could have been the deadliest plane crash in the history of Michigan, surpassing Northwest Airlines Flight 255.
The event was the second airliner bombing attempt in the United States in eight years, following the 2001 American Airlines Flight 63 bombing attempt. If successful, the attack would have surpassed American Airlines Flight 191 as the deadliest airplane crash on U.S. soil and tied Iran Air Flight 655 as the eighth-deadliest of all time. It was also the second event in 2009 involving an Airbus A330 (after the June 1 crash of Air France Flight 447), and the final operational occurrence for Northwest Airlines (preceding that airline's merger with Delta Air Lines the following month).
For his role in the plot, Abdulmutallab was convicted as a civilian criminal in U.S. federal court and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. AQAP leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who reportedly inspired Abdulmutallab and "masterminded" the attack, was killed about two years later as the target of a drone strike in Yemen.
Sequence of events
Preparation
On December 16, 2009, Abdulmutallab visited the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines office in Accra, Ghana, and paid $2,831 in cash for a Lagos-Amsterdam-Detroit round-trip ticket, with a January 8, 2010, return date.
“Northwest Airlines Flight 253” enters the record as 2009 failed airliner bombing attempt. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Northwest, Airlines and Flight can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Northwest Airlines Flight 253” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Northwest, Airlines and Flight provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1427012. Authority coordinates are 42.208, -83.356. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009, 2001 and 2010.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Northwest Airlines Flight 253”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Northwest Airlines Flight 253 primary sources, Northwest Airlines Flight 253 archive and Northwest research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Northwest Airlines Flight 253”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Northwest Airlines Flight 253” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.