TWA Flight 840 (1986)

The Boeing 727-231 involved in the incident was delivered to TWA in 1974, with the registration N54340. It was fitted with 3 P&W JT8D-5 turbofan engines. ==Flight==

The flight originated in Los Angeles on a Boeing 747 and transferred to a Boeing 727 in Rome for the remainder of the flight. After taking off from Rome, Italy, the flight remained uneventful until around 20 minutes before landing at Athens, when the aircraft was at around . A bomb hidden underneath seat 10F during an earlier leg of the flight detonated, blasting a hole in the starboard side of the fuselage in front of the wing. Four American passengers, including an eight-month-old infant, were ejected through the hole to their deaths below. The victims were identified as a Colombian-American man; and a woman, her daughter, and her infant granddaughter. Seven others on the aircraft were injured by shrapnel as the cabin suffered a rapid decompression. However, as the aircraft was in the middle of its approach to Athens, the explosion was not as catastrophic as it would have been at a higher altitude. The remaining 110 passengers survived the incident as pilot Richard "Pete" Petersen made an emergency landing. ==Aftermath==

The bodies of three of the four victims were later recovered from an unused Greek Air Force landing strip near Argos; the fourth was found in the sea. The aircraft was substantially damaged but was repaired and returned to service until TWA ceased operations in 2001. The aircraft was scrapped in 2002. ==Investigation==

Investigators concluded that the bomb contained one pound of plastic explosive. As the bomb was placed on the floor of the cabin, the explosion tore a hole downward, where the fuselage absorbed the most damage. It is suspected it had been placed beneath the seat on a previous journey by a Lebanese woman (later arrested, never convicted) who worked for the Abu Nidal Organisation, which was dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel. They had previously hijacked and bombed several other aircraft, as well as committing various terrorist attacks in parts of the Middle East. ==See also==