Are Liquid Explosives on a Plane Feasible?

permaculture writes "The Register describes the difficulty of mixing up a batch of liquid explosives on a plane. Further, it opines that such a plot might work in a Hollywood film, but not in the real world. Liquid explosives were used for the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, according to the official account — or not, as now seems more likely." This story selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.

Comments

Re:Flight 505 to MacGyver City...

[Khyber]

Except Nitro Glycerine would most likely detonate the second you had any turbulence, or even upon takeoff, given how unstable it is. Now if you wanted to make a bomb out of liquids - why not just bring a bottle of water and a piece of rubidium or cesium? Remember what happens when alkali metals hit water? BOOM! Two grams of cesium and a quart of water is enough to make an explosion roughly equivalent to about three or so hand grenades going off. Water and rubidium can blow apart a bathtub. Cesium is far, far more reactive.

Re:The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?

[illumin8]

The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?

Does anybody else find it suspicious that this story was leaked to the media the day after Joe Lieberman lost the democratic primary in Connecticut? This was one of the key primaries that seems to have indicated to everybody in the Republican party that they were definitely going to lose big in November. Joe Lieberman was with Bush on the war, and this was not only the democrats in his party telling him he was wrong on the war; 15,000 Connecticut voters switched parties from independent or republican, just so that they could tell Joe Lieberman to get lost...

The republicans are losing support big time over here. Finally the majority of people in this country do see through their bullshit, and short of another 9/11, there is no way the republicans can stop it.

Re:The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?

[Anonymous Coward]

Occam's Razor, unless I'm greatly mistaken, basically states that the simplest answer is probably correct.

Which is the most simple explanation? That a bunch of people who don't have passports, plane tickets or (if the Register article is to be believed) the remotest understanding of explosives presented a genuine threat? Or that someone didn't really care what kind of threat they represented wanted to present themselves as the good guys by having "saved" us from this threat?

I'm slightly scared to post this, as I don't want to mysteriously commit suicide in the woods.

Re:possible but improbable

[jjohnson]

the 1993 WTC bombing, the terrorists returned twice for their deposit on the van used to carry the explosives.

This actually isn't as stupid as it sounds. Had the explosion gone off properly, the truck (meaning the identifiable marks of the truck) would have been vaporized and buried. The truck wouldn't have been identifiable for months, at least.

That being the case, it would have been suspicious not to report the truck stolen and claim the deposit. Imagine you're the rental agent. The WTC just blew up, and an appropriately sized truck that you rented out has had no one claim the deposit. That's a direct line to the renter, which is how they actually caught the guys (but only because they identified the truck almost immediately).