Peter Beaumont
The Observer
December 16, 2001

The following news brief appeared at the end of ‘Bin Laden in plot to bomb City’

MI5 has warned Ministers that a determined terrorist attempt to fly a jet into the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria could not be prevented because it is only two minutes’ flying time from transatlantic flight paths.

The warning came after RAF fighters were scrambled over the plant in response to a reported hijack attempt last month. ‘The position is unthinkable,’ an intelligence source said. ‘By the time you listened to a call reporting a hijack, it could be all over.’