U.K.’s Channel 4 Commissions Foiled Terror Attack Documentary

LONDON – U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 has picked up terrestrial broadcast rights to a one-off documentary detailing a 2006 terror plot on British soil to blow up multiple planes simultaneously with explosives disguised as soft drinks.

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The 90-minute doc, The Plot to Bring Down Britain's Planes, made by Emmy-award winning production banner Raw TV, reveals behind-the-scenes friction between the U.S. and U.K. anti-terror authorities.

The plot, if successful, could have killed over 2,000 people and crippled the world aviation industry.

The Plot to Bring Down Britain's Planes aims to reconstruct the inside story of the U.K.'s largest and most dangerous surveillance operation and reveals tensions between the U.S. and U.K. authorities.

It details how American intervention forced the hand of their British partners into making premature arrests which threw the planned operation into jeopardy.

The program - shot in various locations around the U.K. and U.S. - features unprecedented access to members of Counter Terror Command, who for the first time have given interviews and forensic details about the planned terror attack.

It also includes interviews with various big wigs from the British government and the U.S. administration at the time including including the then home secretary Lord Reid, Michael Chertoff, former U.S. homeland security secretary and ex-CIA head General Michael Hayden.

The documentary is directed by Ben Chanan and executive produced by Louise Norman and Dimitri Doganis at Raw TV.

It was commissioned by Julia Harrington at Channel 4 and Bridget Whalen at National Geographic Channel where it aired in 2011 as Liquid Bomb Plot.

Raw TV scooped an international digital Emmy for children and young people for its multimedia project Battlefront (www.battlefront.co.uk) which Channel 4 Education commissioned.