#OTD in 1985 – An Air India Boeing 747 from Toronto crashes off the Irish coast, killing all 329 people aboard in the world’s worst commercial air disaster at sea.

An Air-India Boeing 747 en route from Montreal to London crashed into the Atlantic off the Irish coast, killing all 329 passengers and crew. Indian government and airline officials said they suspected sabotage, and initial indications pointed to a bomb aboard the plane.

By nightfall, a massive international air and sea rescue operation had recovered more than 100 bodies floating along with wreckage about 110 miles off southwestern Ireland. British Coast Guard officials coordinating the search at Falmouth, on England’s southern coast, said they did not expect to find any survivors.

The crash came less than an hour after another airline incident halfway around the world at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, where an explosion in baggage taken from a Canadian Pacific Airlines flight killed two airport workers and injured four others.

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