Northwest Airlines Flight 253 was an international passenger flight from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands , to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in the United States . The flight was the target of a failed al-Qaeda bombing attempt on Christmas Day , December 25 , 2009 , in which a passenger tried to set off chemical explosives sewn to his underwear . There were 290 people on board the aircraft &mdash; an Airbus A330-323E operated by Northwest Airlines , which had merged with Delta Air Lines the year before . Had the attempt succeeded , it would have surpassed American Airlines Flight 191 as the deadliest aviation occurrence on U.S. soil and tied Iran Air Flight 655 as the eighth-deadliest of all time . The incident was also the second in 2009 involving an Airbus A330 , after the crash of Air France Flight 447 on June 1 . This was also the final accident/incident involving Northwest Airlines as it closed down a month later when it merged with Delta Air Lines
Iran Air Flight 655
Iran Air Flight 655
Northwest Airlines Flight 253