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January 4, 2004 -- A she-bomber planned to blow up British Airways Flight 223 over Washington with plastic explosives hidden inside her body, a chilling new report says.
U.S. security services told Scotland Yard that the woman - almost certainly linked to al Qaeda - planned to hide 8 to 12 ounces of the material tucked inside her reproductive region, London's Mirror newspaper reported.

When the flight was over the nation's capital, the bomber would go to the bathroom, remove the explosives and detonate a blast that would blow the aircraft out of the skies.

A Homeland Security official said he was unaware of a specific threat of a female suicide bomber who would hide explosives in her body.

But he added, "We've had concerns about IEDs" - improvised explosives devices.

As a result, airport security screeners check for women wearing loose clothing and other signs the official declined to talk about.

"Smuggling a bomb onto a plane by this method is one of our worst nightmares," a senior Scotland Yard source told the newspaper. "If you do not have specific information about the suspect, it would be impossible to carry out an intimate body search of every female passenger."

Flight 223 to Washington's Dulles Airport was canceled for two days because of fears that an al Qaeda terror team planned to hijack the plane and crash it into the nation's capital.

The flight finally took off from London's Heathrow Airport yesterday afternoon after being delayed for 3 hours and 20 minutes by security checks.

It landed safely at Dulles around 9:20 p.m. last night

All 268 passengers were searched and taken on board one by one as armed cops and sniffer dogs stood by. Detectives questioned some passengers and U.S. officials checked the full passenger list before the plane was given clearance to leave.

British Airways also cancelled a morning flight from Dulles to Heathrow as well as a flight from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and its return today.

The Scotland Yard source said intelligence information indicated the womb-bomb attack was planned for "sometime over the holiday period." A specific British Airways flight was mentioned.

"Because the intelligence did not identify a passenger by name, it was decided to disrupt the plot by canceling the flights," the source said.

Britain's transportation minister, Alistair Darling, said "specific information" led to the grounding of the British Airways flights and warned that more cancellations might occur to prevent a Sept. 11-style attack.

"The threat that we now face is likely to endure for many years," Darling told BBC Radio. "There may occasionally from time to time be the need to ground a particular flight."

Asked if British authorities had information about specific threats, Darling said, "Yes, we do."

A British Airways spokeswoman the cancellations were based on these threats and not on pilots' opposition to having armed air marshals on board.

The United States said last week that it will not allow certain suspicious flights into American airspace without the marshals on board.

Britain's powerful pilots' union opposes the idea and at one point urged its pilots not to fly with the marshals on board.

But the union now says it won't block the plan.

Meanwhile, a Homeland Security spokesman said authorities have been discussing security with the NFL and the NCAA during the playoff and college bowl season.