1975 LaGuardia Airport Bombing

On the evening of December 29, 1975, at approximately 6:33 p.m., a powerful bomb detonated in the TWA baggage reclaim terminal at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Investigators estimated the device contained the equivalent of 25 sticks of dynamite and had been placed inside a coin-operated locker adjacent to the baggage carousels. The explosion killed 11 people, all from fragmentation caused by the destroyed lockers, and injured 74 others, some from flying shards of the terminal's plate-glass windows. The blast tore a large hole in the reinforced concrete ceiling of the baggage claim area, and the resulting fire took over an hour to extinguish. The victims, ranging in age from 25 to 72, were largely airport employees, people awaiting transportation, and limousine drivers, as the area had been mostly cleared of arriving passengers by the time of the explosion.

The bombing was condemned by Pope Paul VI and President Gerald Ford, who cut short a vacation and ordered the FAA to review airport security measures. New York City Mayor Abraham Beame vowed that those responsible would be found.

The NYPD's Queens chief of detectives, Edwin Dreher, led what was at the time the largest criminal investigation in the department's history, involving approximately 120 NYPD detectives alongside 600 FBI agents, ATF agents, and Port Authority investigators. Investigators determined the bomb was built from either TNT or plastic explosive, triggered using a household alarm clock and battery. A paroled political activist whose brother had been arrested at LaGuardia on a fraud charge the day before the bombing was investigated as a suspect but was cleared after establishing an alibi. Cleanup operations that removed victims and debris from the scene may have hampered the investigation.

Following the attack, hoax threats were phoned in to several other American airports. An anonymous caller told the news agency UPI that the Palestine Liberation Organization was responsible, but a PLO spokesman at the United Nations denied involvement and condemned the attack; the PLO suggested the call was intended to sabotage unrelated UN talks. Other groups suggested as possible perpetrators — including the Mafia, the FALN, and the Jewish Defense League — were not linked to the bombing by any evidence beyond their history of violence. Investigators also examined possible connections to Croatian separatist activity, including the group Otpor, whose leader reportedly confessed to the LaGuardia bombing before recanting, and Croatian hijacker Zvonko Bušić, who was named a person of interest but never charged in this case. One commentator has suggested the Yugoslav state security service may have orchestrated the bombing as a false-flag operation to discredit Croatian dissidents, though this remains a theory rather than an established fact.

Investigators ultimately concluded there had been no credible claim of responsibility, and theorized the bomb may have detonated at an unintended time. A $50,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest, but the case remains officially unsolved.