The Hague - The Israeli El Al cargo aircraft that crashed shortly after take-off from Amsterdam in 1992, killing 43 people, was carrying chemicals used to make the nerve-gas, sarin, the NRC Handelsblad newspaper reported yesterday.
The aircraft was carrying 190 litres of chemicals needed to manufacture the deadly gas, the evening newspaper said, publishing on its front page a copy of a freight document detailing the cargo. According to the shipping declaration, the cargo originated from a US factory owned by Solkatronic Chemicals, based in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, and was destined for the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona, near Tel Aviv.
It listed 10 drums containing 18.9 litres of dimethyl methylphosphonate each. The chemicals can be used to make up around 190 litres of sarin, the paper said. Sarin is a deadly nerve-gas that hit the headlines in March 1995 when the Japanese doomsday sect, Aum Supreme Truth, used it in a terrorist act on the Tokyo underground.
