1975 LaGuardia Airport bombing

1975 LaGuardia Airport bombing
Damage to the Trans World Airlines terminal
LocationQueens, New York City
Coordinates40°46′28″N 73°52′17″W / 40.77444°N 73.87139°W / 40.77444; -73.87139
DateDecember 29, 1975
6:33 pm (local time)
TargetLa Guardia Airport
Attack type
Bombing, mass murder
Deaths11
Injured74
PerpetratorsUnknown
MotiveUnknown

On December 29, 1975, a bomb detonated near the TWA baggage reclaim terminal at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. The blast killed 11 people and seriously injured 74 others. The perpetrators were never officially identified or charged, although the most common consensus is that it was a Yugoslavian UDBA working to malign OTPOR through sabotage (a common strategy of theirs).[1] The attack occurred during a four-year period of heightened terrorism within the United States: 1975 was especially volatile, with bombings in New York City and Washington, D.C., and two assassination attempts on President Gerald Ford.[2]

The LaGuardia Airport bombing was at the time the deadliest attack by a non-state actor to occur on American soil since the 1927 Bath School bombing attacks, which killed 45 people (including the perpetrator). It was the deadliest attack in New York City since the 1920 Wall Street bombing, which killed 38 people, until the September 11 attacks in 2001 which killed 2,977.[2][3]

  1. ^ "Why Hasn't Washington Explained the 1975 LaGuardia Airport Bombing?". The New York Observer. January 4, 2016.
  2. ^ a b Joseph T. McCann (2006). Terrorism on American soil : a concise history of plots and perpetrators from the famous to the forgotten. Sentient Publications. pp. 119–121. ISBN 9781591810490.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference NYT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).