Smoke and the smell of sulfur began to spread from seat 29J. Richard Reid, a 28-year-old British citizen, was trying to light a match on the fuse of a plastic explosive known as TATP, which was molded into the hollowed-out soles of his high-top sneakers. A flight attendant, Hermis Moutardier, asked him to stop smoking. He pushed her. She and another attendant, Cristina Jones, along with several passengers, wrestled him to the floor. They used belts, headphone cords, and sedative injections from an emergency kit to restrain him for the remaining two hours of the flight. The pilot diverted to Boston.
This event mattered because it was a successful failure. Reid's device was functional; forensic tests later showed the matches he used could have ignited the fuse. The explosives, while crude, were potent. The attack demonstrated Al-Qaeda's continued ingenuity in targeting aviation after the September 11 attacks just three months prior. It directly led to the universal, and now permanent, requirement for passengers to remove shoes at airport security checkpoints in the United States and many other countries.
A common assumption is that the explosives were in the shoes' heels. They were packed throughout the entire sole, with a detonator in the heel. Another is that Reid acted alone. He was a follower of Al-Qaeda, trained in Afghanistan, and his mission was coordinated by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. His failure was due to the vigilance of the crew, the dampness of his matches, and the sheer difficulty of lighting a fuse in a crowded aircraft seat.
The lasting impact is a layer of ritual in modern travel. The shoe removal ritual is a direct legacy of Reid's attempt. More broadly, the event underscored the evolving, adaptive nature of terrorist threats to aviation, forcing security to focus on non-metallic explosives and the body as a concealment method. It proved that a plot need not succeed to alter the daily behavior of millions.