[MMike]

Attempting to instill panic and all that....

More interesting to me however was the discussion revolving around actually creating an explosion large enough to actually take an airplane out of the sky. An awful lot can go wrong on a plane before it will actually plummet. Looking at the incidents where entire chunks of fuselage were torn away due to mechanical failures or sabotage. Sure a few people were sucked out, but they still landed the plane safely.

This whole deal is being billed as "the big one that was foiled".... From what they were saying on dateline, it didn't sound like these "sportdrink bombs" could actually take a plane down, unless it was place EXACTLY right, AND they got very lucky with external variables.

Of course it would do anyone a whole lot of good one way or another....but still.

 

[MMike]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811

This aircraft was repaired and returned to service.... could still be flying for all I know.

 

[Slugman]

I'm pretty sure that anyone planning to bomb an aircraft is going to set the bomb off in an area that will casue the most harm.

#1 - Above the wings... since they are the gas tanks.
#2 - Just outside the cockpit... even if you don't take out the pilots, you can destroy a lot of the controls.
#3 - Back of the plane... gets rid of the tail (if big enough).

I do think that it's being a little overstated, but I can see it working very well if they tried hard enough.

I have not been following the arrest too much (was very busy at work this week), did they actually recover any explosive components or just people involved in the concept?

 

[dhbuilder]

Attempting to instill panic and all that....

More interesting to me however was the discussion revolving around actually creating an explosion large enough to actually take an airplane out of the sky. An awful lot can go wrong on a plane before it will actually plummet. Looking at the incidents where entire chunks of fuselage were torn away due to mechanical failures or sabotage. Sure a few people were sucked out, but they still landed the plane safely.

This whole deal is being billed as "the big one that was foiled".... From what they were saying on dateline, it didn't sound like these "sportdrink bombs" could actually take a plane down, unless it was place EXACTLY right, AND they got very lucky with external variables.

Of course it would do anyone a whole lot of good one way or another....but still.

so they're saying we should just let them bring them aboard to find out ?
f...... dateline.
remember what network that show is on.
anything to downplay the extra security measures we need to be undertaking to keep one or two steps ahead of these maniacs.

i'm not saying that all this isn't being blown out of proprtion by the media and members of our administration and others around the world.
but scew those imbeciles at NBC for surrying around like propagandist they are, in a mad dash to get something on the air that tries to knock down what sounds like some damn good spy work.

a big thanks to the NSA, MI-6 and whatever pakistani agency was involved in busting this plot apart.

 

[RenegadeRick]

I have not been following the arrest too much (was very busy at work this week), did they actually recover any explosive components or just people involved in the concept?

I have heard of no explosive components, just people. As I heard it, they had gone as far as checking out flight schedules on the internet:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/11/terror.plot/index.html
The men detained in Britain Thursday had not bought plane tickets, the officials said, but they had been perusing the Internet to find flights to various cities that had similar departure times.

Fvkcing shocking I tell you. Travelocity, Expedia, etc. should be shut down immediately. Obviously, they are enabling terror!

 

[Slugman]

Fvkcing shocking I tell you. Travelocity, Expedia, etc. should be shut down immediately. Obviously, they are enabling terror!

Where is the damn rep button!!!

 

[MMike]

I'd like to think that I know a thing or two about commerical airliners. And IMHO, (ingnoring dateline) I think it would be quite difficult to actually take a plane down. Not impossible of course. But just having an explosion of Gatorade proportion wouldn't guarantee a successful downing.

so they're saying we should just let them bring them aboard to find out ?
f...... dateline.
remember what network that show is on.
anything to downplay the extra security measures we need to be undertaking to keep one or two steps ahead of these maniacs.

i'm not saying that all this isn't being blown out of proprtion by the media and members of our administration and others around the world.
but scew those imbeciles at NBC for surrying around like propagandist they are, in a mad dash to get something on the air that tries to knock down what sounds like some damn good spy work.

a big thanks to the NSA, MI-6 and whatever pakistani agency was involved in busting this plot apart.

 

[urbaindk]

but scew those imbeciles at NBC for surrying around like propagandist they are, in a mad dash to get something on the air that tries to knock down what sounds like some damn good spy work.

a big thanks to the NSA, MI-6 and whatever pakistani agency was involved in busting this plot apart.

I watched the program. I thought it was pretty well balanced overall actually. I don't think they were trying to knock the spy work at all. Also, as an engineer and chemist I thought the part about the airplane's vounerabilities was probably pretty realistic.

Last year when I taught freshman chem (I teach at a military academy and this was just weeks after the London bombings) I tried to impress upon the students just how easy it was to build bombs from common every day stuff and I used lots of examples in class. I tried using this to motivate them to learn chemistry to combat the terrorists and to make them think a little. At one point I thought about building a small 'IED' (more like a nice bright flash of gun-cotton) with a disposable flash camera almost exactly like the one these bombers planned on using. I decided not to because I thought it might be crossing the line.

Anyway my point is that it is very scary how easily it is to make this stuff and how unprepared we are to stop it, any freshman chemistry student should be able to do it. This has been a fear of mine since 9/11 and it almost came true yesterday. Good on the detectives and good on the people that reported the suspicious activities to the London Police that got these people caught. Lets hope they caught enough of them to actually stop the plot altogther.

 

[RenegadeRick]

Anyway my point is that it is very scary how easily it is to make this stuff and how unprepared we are to stop it, any freshman chemistry student should be able to do it.

RM's profanity filters prevent me from posting the actual link here. Remove the 3 capital X's to follow the link.
http://www.xopl.com/blog/2006/08/10/crockofsXXXhit.html
You will find this about 1/2 way down.
Calcium carbide CaC2 is almost free to get everywhere in europe, it has no smell, no dog can smell it, combined with water you will ge Acetylene gas CaC2(s) + 2 H2O(l) -> Ca(OH)2(s) + C2H2(g), inside an smal room( airplane toilet) you can create an fatal explosion using only 100 gram, just by adding water, and light it

So if this is so easy to do, and you can simply use the liquids already present on the plane, isn't all this carp simply a kneejerk overreaction at best?

One could NEVER prevent every possible threat to aviation security.

Maybe it would be better if the USUK simply stopped making everyone hate us so much? It would certainly be cheaper.

 

[dhbuilder]

if nothing else.
this latest round of arrests shows that the worldwide agencies are at least working their @$$es off trying to stay ahead of the criminals.

and it must be working. if all the terrorists can come up with through their network and all their planning is gatorade bottles full of whatever.

whether it would've worked or not.
this was a serious attempt at disrupting the western lifestyle of free travel.
just the fallout from one international flight being seriously affected by this, would have thrown the monetary world in a tailspin.
they wouldn't have actually have had to bring a plane down to get the desired results.
just yesterday the price of a barrel of oil dropped $2 per.
just over speculation that airlines might lose buisness and not purchase as much fuel.

the financial institutions worldwide operate like a bunch of scared children.
freaking out over every little thing whether it be real or percieved.
one day the market's up.
one day the market's down.
all over speculation and nothing more.
it's the same with crudeoil prices.

the terrorists know this all too well.

it despicable that a major news program would air hogwash like that.
that network along with many others here and abroad have a political agenda that they try to constantly shove down our throats.
and any success in the war on terror doesn't help their message at all.

 

[Transcend]

So I wonder how much they will flip out when i attempt to bring $20 000 or so in camera gear on a flight to new zealand next week. ugh.

 

[urbaindk]

CaC2

Ah, the old miner's lights. I hadn't even thought of that. Yes, the possiblities of potential destructive household stuff is practically endless. If there is a will there is a way and nothing short of full body cavity search and not allowing any cargo on the plane would stop somebody who wants to do harm from doing it. That's the sad truth.

IMO, Prevention is the best medicine, whether it be from good solid spying / detection (short-term) or rearranging our role in the socio-economic system of the middle-east (long-term).

 

[N8 v2.0]

So I wonder how much they will flip out when i attempt to bring $20 000 or so in camera gear on a flight to new zealand next week. ugh.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Maybe it would be better if the USUK simply stopped making everyone hate us so much? It would certainly be cheaper.

what happens if you are hated for irrational causes?

or likely, if an initially rational hate has become so rooted, its irrational by now?

 

[Transcend]

It could be worse, I could be a GOP worshipping metrosexual like you.

 

[Transcend]

what happens if you are hated for irrational causes?

or likely, if an initially rational hate has become so rooted, its irrational by now?

Like invading small countries illegally and killing their civilians? Sounds pretty rational to me.

 

[RenegadeRick]

If there is a will there is a way and nothing short of full body cavity search and not allowing any cargo on the plane would stop somebody who wants to do harm from doing it. That's the sad truth.

Well let's not give the TSA any ideas...

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

It could be worse, I could be a GOP worshipping metrosexual like you.

i´d give you a few points for the try.

although there is some slacking in the technical execution of t3h funny.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Like invading small countries illegally and killing their civilians? Sounds pretty rational to me.

you know perfectly terrorism has roots that go further back than july 2006, or 1991.....

a better estimate could be that islamic terrorism started somewhere in the first half of the 20th century.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Lattes, IPods Among Air Security Fears By MATT CRENSON
AP National Writer
Aug 11, 8:06 AM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- Shampoo, iPods and Starbucks lattes have suddenly become security threats. Terrorists could easily slip a few apparently innocuous items past airport security and assemble them into a lethal explosive once aloft, security experts said.

Some envision a group of two or three terrorists mixing up explosives in an airplane bathroom, perhaps even using commonplace materials such as hydrogen peroxide and detonating their bomb with the battery from a cellphone or some other small electronic device.

"In mid-flight you could go into the toilet, attach the mobile phone to the explosives and, as the plane makes a final approach over a densely populated urban area, you detonate it," said Irish security analyst Tom Clonan.

To puncture an aircraft's fuselage would require an explosive charge "half the size of a cigarette packet," he said.

Experts interviewed after Thursday's arrest of suspects in a massive airline bomb plot say there are many ways that seemingly innocuous substances could be smuggled aboard a plane and assembled into an explosive device in flight.

That means airport security screening, now focused on detecting weapons and large amounts of explosives, might have to ban such workaday items as cell phones, hand sanitizer and contact lens solution. Flying could become an experience of extreme privation from the conveniences of modern life, preceded by even more onerous security screening.

"That theater we see, of people taking off shoes, is not going to stop a suicide bomber. The terrorists have already sniffed out the weak spots and are adopting new tactics," Clonan said.

Officials declined to discuss whatever technology the thwarted plot uncovered. But British authorities banned all carry-on luggage, suggesting that the explosives or their ingredients would have been difficult or impossible for airport security screening to detect.

In the United States, hand luggage was still being allowed, but liquids were banned except for baby formula, insulin and other medicines.

"We are taking the step of preventing liquids from getting into the cabin to give us time to make adjustments in our current screening tactics, based upon what we learn from this investigation," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday morning.

Experts said the measures suggest that terrorists planned to sneak one or more bomb ingredients aboard as many as 10 aircraft, then mix and wire them to a battery detonator.

"Their intention was to smuggle on board some kind of liquid explosive disguised as an aftershave bottle or hair conditioner or shampoo or whatever," said M.J. Gohel, who is director of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London-based think tank.

A similar threat in January 1995 led officials in the Philippines to briefly ban aerosol sprays, bottled gels and liquid containers of more than about an ounce from departing planes because of a suspected terror plot during a visit by Pope John Paul II. As in the current situation an exception was made for baby formula, even though in powdered form it could easily disguise explosives.

The Philippines plot was masterminded by Ramzi Youssef, now serving a life sentence for the first World Trade Center attack. He planned to assemble bombs using a nitroglycerin-based liquid explosive disguised as contact lens solution. The bombers were to use digital watches as timed detonators and leave the devices on board after leaving the flights during layovers.

The plot was foiled with an explosion from the Manila apartment where Youssef was doing experiments.

"The need to address this liquid explosives problem is over 10 years old," U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., complained in a statement issued Thursday that called for improved airport security screening.

Nitroglycerin and similar explosives have become much harder to slip by aiport security today than they were a decade ago thanks to "sniffer" machines that can detect trace amounts of explosives residue on luggage and passengers.

Partly for that reason, terrorists have increasingly turned to peroxide-based explosives such as TATP, which was used in last year's London subway bombings. Production of the explosive has been perfected over the past several decades by Palestinian bomb-makers who produce it using bleach, drain cleaner and acetone paint thinner.

In 2001 shoe bomber Richard Reid was subdued by fellow passengers on a trans-Atlantic flight while trying to ignite a bomb in his shoes made out of plastic explosives with a TATP trigger. The 2005 London subway bombings also relied on TATP, a powder explosive.

More dangerous than nitroglycerin or TATP are various liquid explosives that could be transported in sealed containers, making them undetectable to sensors that pick up volatile gasses that are typically emitted by explosive substances.

For safety reasons, said John Pike, director of Washington-based think tank Globalsecurity.org, some commercial products are even designed to be transported as two relatively inert substances and then mixed together on site to produce an explosive.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Like invading small countries illegally and killing their civilians? Sounds pretty rational to me.

shouldn't you be flying canadian arilines where the happy-good vibes will keep terrorists off the plane anyway..???

 

[Transcend]

"In mid-flight you could go into the toilet, attach the mobile phone to the explosives and, as the plane makes a final approach over a densely populated urban area, you detonate it," said Irish security analyst Tom Clonan.

To puncture an aircraft's fuselage would require an explosive charge "half the size of a cigarette packet," he said.

And to actually bring a plane down would require a charge more along the lines of an entire backpack, in exactly the right place on the plane.

Fear mongering at its finest!

 

[N8 v2.0]

And to actually bring a plane down would require a charge more along the lines of an entire backpack, in exactly the right place on the plane.

Fear mongering at its finest!

Transcend: Explosive expert know-it-all....

 

[MMike]

shouldn't you be flying canadian arilines where the happy-good vibes will keep terrorists off the plane anyway..???

Seems to be working so far.....

That, or Air Canada's crappy catering.

 

[Transcend]

Transcend: Explosive expert know-it-all....

Sorry if I'm overly educated and you're just a GOP parrot.

You may want to read all of the evidecne from aeronautic engineers who say as much, as well as look at the photo evidence of many planes that land with humongous holes in them.

 

[MMike]

photo evidence of many planes that land with humongous holes in them.

like the one I posted in this thread?

 

[Secret Squirrel]

So, let's review....

- Wild speculation is thrown around about not being able to take any liquids, carry-ons, etc.
- Half a pack of cigs is needed to down a 747....at least N8 believes it....Now I'm really scared....
- Ban everything from coming onto a plane....even people....that'll fix all our problems.

Is it just me or would the people wanting to cause harm just get smart and apply to be flight attendants and airline caterers....all of a sudden you have Pepsi at your disposal!!! Oh horrors....

 

[Transcend]

like the one I posted in this thread?

whoa, no kidding, really?

 

[Silver]

All this, and they still don't inspect all the cargo on commerical flights, do they?

What a bunch of CYA bull****.

 

[MMike]

All this, and they still don't inspect all the cargo on commerical flights, do they?

What a bunch of CYA bull****.

According to dateline last night, I believe they said that like 2% of cargo gets looked at.

 

[Transcend]

According to dateline last night, I believe they said that like 2% of cargo gets looked at.

It's hilarious as I have shipped a bunch of crap cargo on the same commercial flights i have been flying on. (pallettes of bikes). I coudl load whatever the hell I wanted on it.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Its all crap until an attack actually happens.

After that its all about "why did our government fail us???"

 

[stevew]

explosion of Gatorade proportion wouldn't guarantee a successful downing.

sh!t that's funny.

 

[RenegadeRick]

Its all crap until an attack actually happens.
After that its all about "why did our government fail us???"

Our government failed us at the moment they felt it was their responsibility to protect us.
It is simply impossible to guard against every threat.

If the USUK government stopped fvcking with everyone including their own citizens and stopped trying to spread our ideals around the world and just stayed the fvck out of everybody's business the world might be a safer place.

If the land of the free could only learn to let people be free :mumble:

 

[Transcend]

Its all crap until an attack actually happens.

After that its all about "why did our government fail us???"

No, we know why your government is failing you. It is because you voted a completely incompetent adminsitration into power (twice!). It has nothing to do with terrorists, so don't try and blame them.

 

[dhbuilder]

but look at the two complete blithering idiots he ran against.

these two were the most pathetic excuses for political candidates this country has ever seen.

problem is, we may not have heard the last from the one that looks like a deflated football.

 

[Silver]

but look at the two complete blithering idiots he ran against.

So when you are facing the choice of which retard to take as your leader, your preference is for the dumbest retard?

 

[dhbuilder]

we've been choosing from the lesser of two evils for quite some time now.

 

[Transcend]

And yet you keep failing and picking the dumbest of the bunch.

 

[valve bouncer]

All this, and they still don't inspect all the cargo on commerical flights, do they?

What a bunch of CYA bull****.

And Silver zips in for the win. Given how often you hear of baggage handlers/loaders getting busted for pinching stuff it's not that much of a reach to think that the nuts brigade don't have a few plants in place.

And N8 I don't think you'd have to worry about terrorists assembling bombs in the toilets of any flight you're on. They'd never get in. You'd be in there the whole flight attempting to join the mile high club with yourself.