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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.
but what about SNAKES on a plane, ever thought of that?
Borat is able to do liquid explosions
Let's not all suck at the same time please
Nitro Glycerine is a liquid.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Does anyone else think that these terrorists' true purpose is not to kill the passengers on a few planes but to inconvenience travellers for years to come? Blowing up a plane is a one-time deal but scaring people into not taking drinks onto planes, making people take off their shoes before boarding, checking their ipods in with their luggage, these annoyances are going to be with us for decades to come! Why terrorize when irritating is so much easier?
Christ, this has .
I was shocked to hear the media talking about the possibility of bring nitroglycerin onto an airplane. The entire reason that dynamite was invented is because the liquid is horribly volitile. Some people have speculated that the terrorists were not attempting a large scale explosion as CNN and Fox News would have you believe. Instead they were waiting until the plane was in the middle of the Atlantic and starting a fairly large fire. There are many substances that can create a dangerous fire on an airplane in the middle of the ocean at 30,000 feet. There is no need for a Holywood style explosion at all. I am being intentionally vague in this post, but three men with drink containers full of certain substances starting three fires at three different parts of the plane would be extremely difficult to control, especially considering the lack of fire surpression systems in the passenger cabin. I am not a firefighter (rookie EMT and will be training to be a rescuer) but I cannot imagine trying to put out three fires with the 1-2 fire extingueshers available.
The first World Trade Center bombing and OK City show that everyday chamicals can be combined with horrific results. In those situations, however, there were truckloads of the two ingredients. I agree in part with TFA that it would be hard to perform an explosion the size of Pan-Am 103's with liquids, but that is not necesary.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_ uk_terror_p.html
I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.
So this, I believe, is the true story.
None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.
In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.
What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.
Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.
The gentleman being "interrogated" had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.
We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for "Another 9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.
We then have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid, Home Secretary, making a speech warning us all of the dreadful evil threatening us and complaining that "Some people don't get" the need to abandon all our traditional liberties. He then went on, according to his own propaganda machine, to stay up all night and minutely direct the arrests. There could be no clearer evidence that our Police are now just a political tool. Like all the best nasty regimes, the knock on the door came in the middle of the night, at 2.30am. Those arrested included a mother with a six week old baby.
For those who don't know, it is worth introducing Reid. A hardened Stalinist with a long term reputation for personal violence, at Stirling Univeristy he was the Communist Party's "Enforcer", (in days when the Communist Party ran Stirling University Students' Union, which it should not be forgotten was a business with a very substantial cash turnover). Reid was sent to beat up those who deviated from the Party line.
We will now never know if any of those arrested would have gone on to make a bomb or buy a plane t
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Theory be damned, it seems like *terrorists* certainly think liquid explosives are feasible. A woman was apparently just caught at Tri-State Airport with explosives in her water bottle:
http://www.wsaz.com/breakingnews/3590966.html
My bicyles
Bruce Schneier linked to another post which had an interesting take by a chemist in a graduate program. He describes details of the chemicals involved and what it would take to detonate them effectively onboard a plane.
The summary: improvised explosives involve pretty nasty stuff that you'd be hard pressed to mix in an airplane lavatory without killing yourself in the process.
Firstly, the 7/7 bombs were reported to be TATP. This compound is made with acetone, hydrogen peroxide and drain cleaner. The ingredients are liquid, yes, but the end product is a powder. Creating TATP requires access to a cooler or ice water bath, it is not something you can whip up in a bathroom.
The hysteria this has caused is mind boggling. There are an infinite number of ways terrorists could attack random innocent civilians. It is not, repeat not, possible to protect everyone from everything. Banning iPods and water bottles is not making anyone safer. It is an attempt to appear that something is "being done". It's a pacifier for the masses.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Perry Metzger wrote an excellent post to the interesting-people mailing list last Friday. He goes into more detail than the Register article does, offers first-hand information, and packs in more irony and sarcasm besides.
They talk about how far-fetched and difficult it might be to pull off.
But couldn't we have made all these drawn out "first they'd have to learn how to fly commercial jetliners, not necessarily knowing which types they'd eventually board, then they'd have to successfully get to the cockpit without being incapacitated, and THEN they'd have to make the pilots think they were hijacking the plane, then kill them, and if all that weren't enough, then they'd have to actually divert the planes successfully to their targets as inexperienced pilots, AND hit them once there"-type things about 9/11, too?
Who would have believed that before it happened? Who wouldn't have said that someone had been "watching a few too many Hollywood movies"?
These were determined people who had been planning for months, if not years (depending on which reports and which of the people you're talking about). Only one person really had to succeed. And even if the actual loss of life on one plane would be negligible, the economic and other impacts would again be immeasurable - that's the point, theirs and ours.
What a bunch of idiots, it has already been done on a plane, years ago.
It isnt a new concept, its an old plan...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oplan_Bojinka
To Quote the article on wikipedia:
The "Mark II" "microbombs" had Casio digital watches as the timers, stabilizers that looked like cotton wool balls, and an undetectable nitroglycerin as the explosive. Other ingredients included glycerin, nitrate, sulfuric acid, and minute concentrations of nitrobenzene, silver azide (silver trinitride), and liquid acetone. Two 9-volt batteries in each bomb were used as a power source. The batteries would be connected to light bulb filaments that would detonate the bomb. Murad and Yousef wired an SCR as the switch to trigger the filaments to detonate the bomb. There was an external socket hidden when the wires were pushed under the watch base as the bomber would wear it. The alteration was so small that the watch could still be worn in a normal manner. [1] [5] [7]
Yousef got batteries past airport security during his December 11 test bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434 by hiding them in hollowed-out heels of his shoes. Yousef smuggled the nitroglycerin on board by putting it inside a contact lens solution bottle.
The density of the explosive cocktail would be about 1.3.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Libertarians appear out of fucking nowhere; roll for save vs. simple solutions to complex problems.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
There are so many problems with this. Why weren't liquids blocked before? I'm sure in the billions they spent investigating possible methods for bombing a plane that liquid explosives were considered. Authorities aren't gonna make people get on planes naked, so they have to let people take stuff on. They are only blocking liquids now because they have to show the public that they are doing something. There are still dozens of other ways to easily get dangerious stuff onto planes, but they don't block those now, do they? easy examples: Sharp pencils and pens, materials in laptops and other electronics that show up as normal shapes on the xray but could easily be reconfigured into weapons, etc.
In any event I just took a flight from China to Los Angeles and they claimed you couldn't bring liquids aboard, but no one was checking. It's all just noise to make people feel like they are being protected.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Libertarians are like mind flayers. Fail your saving throw and lose several points of intelligence.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Where's the "-1 Crackpot" moderation option?
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
You know, I've read several articles now talking about the potential difficulties in mixing a binary explosive on a plane. And you know, I'll buy that. But, for my dollar, and ease of use, why not just carry on some bleach and ammonia? When mixed they do some pretty nasty stuff. And there's no concern about explosion beforehand, and no strange requirements for mixing them properly. Plus, once you mix them, you can't stop the reaction. The end result is the same. Everyone on the plane dies, and it falls out of the sky. That was the whole point, right?
--Brian
Of course, if you don't believe him you can try it for yourself. Remember to pack a hydraulic jack in your carry-on.
What I see there is a Pakistani woman caught with a water bottle full of "possibly explosive" material. They don't know what the material was yet.
This certainly could be "a terrorist caught with explosives", the conclusion you jump to; given that it was a real possibility, evacuating the airport and investigating further as they have done was of course the appropriate course of action for the time being.
But it also seems possible this is a false alarm, similar to this morning when a bomb sniffing dog detected a suspicious container that turned out to be full of completely ordinary rags, or the day before when an "unruly passenger" was widely reported to have "Vaseline, a screw driver, matches and a note referencing al-Qaeda" and then it turned out she had nothing of the kind and was just having some kind of nervous breakdown and peeing in the plane aisles (?), or a couple days before that when three men of Arabic descent were arrested with a bunch of cell phones on suspicion they were going to blow up a bridge but then turned out only to be buying cell phones to resell in Dallas at a profit.
Again, it could be that this woman arrested in West Virginia was part of a real terrorist plot, and it could be that some unhinged lady was inspired by recent media reports about plane bombs to pour lighter fluid in a couple of water bottles and attempt to board a plane. Perhaps there really was a legitimate threat to passenger safety there. I shall be watching the news on this one with interest to find out exactly what happened.
But until we do find out exactly what happened, it seems awfully odd in this case to say "reality has intervened" when in fact what you mean is "partly speculative media reports have intervened".
Bruce Schneier, the dean of crypto and security processes generally, yesterday debunked this plot as "implausible".
A British diplomat (to Uzbekistan, an actual center of the Qaeda War) warns us to be skeptical of the plot. Especially its timing, which was premature for destroying a possible network, but right on time to steal headlines from a primary defeat from a leading neocon that drew defensive scare propaganda from Bush and Cheney even though it's a Democratic primary.
As we see more and more of our Republican government terrorizing us on their campaign schedule, we have more chances to turn against them, and fight our own war against terror ourselves, in our own minds and at the polls. We can replace anyone in the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the Senate.
--
make install -not war
The article quoted is by Craig Murray - an ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan, who gained notoriety by blowing the whistle on the UK's support for Uzbekistan's torturers.
Needless to say, Mr Murray paid a heavy price for his candour.
Read up!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
There's reality-based experience that says cabin de-pressurization won't have anything like the effect you describe. Doesn't anyone remember Aloha 243? The top of the plane peeled right off (not just a wussy little window blow-out) at altitude. There was one fatality, a flight attendant who wasn't strapped in. The pilots landed the plane safely.
As for mixing the explosives being "certainly possible" I think you should look at the Perry Metzger article I've also cited elsewhere.
Haven't you ever seen the documentary "Lost" on TV on ABC. About 30 people survived when Oceanic flight 815 crashed off the coast of Australlia. What I can't figure out is how these people get their documentary broadcast but nobody has been able to find the island they are stranded on for 2 years.
This just in: Racial profiling to obtain a 3% success rate "good enough for me... as long as I don't fit that profile."
I realise we are talking about a religion, but racial/ethnic/religious profile takes too long. And how much ill will do you think is being created by this kind of behavior?
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Everyone keeps saying this stuff about "passengers won't comply" in the aftermath of 9/11.
I call BS. Nobody knows whether or not passengers will comply, because these are very volatile, fear-laden situations and if a couple of bodies are lying in front of you to illustrate the resolve of the attackers, you are gonna be scared to death of trying anything yourself. I'm not saying it's impossible, but until there is another hijacking attempt and we find out that the passengers rush the hijackers, we cannot categorically say that this will happen. I think it's a fantasy to pretend otherwise.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
You just need a sealed unit, so that any odors don't escape, it's not that difficult.
However, depending on your mixing process, you might set it off if you're not trained in proper handling. But, from every account I've ever seen, they appear to be well trained and versed in how to use explosives.
That's the problem, quite frankly.
Now, all that said, you're still safer on a plane than in a car, even with all these risks, and you still should refuse to live in unnecessary fear. Most such problems can be handled by tossing a blanket or a thick coat on top of the terrorist and pinning him down until he's subdued by the flight crew.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The terrorists want to _inconvenience_ the world into adopting Sharia law...
Another reader pointed out that, while the explosive scenario is problematic, incindiary devices are easy. A soup-can full of Potassium Permanganate and a rougly equal volume of Glycerine will make a heck of a blaze -- or a really nice igniter for a thermite bomb. I suspect all of these materials could be smuggled aboard (though I'm not about to try).
Another potential venue is nerve agents. Without going into any real detail, hydrofluoric acid is the foundation for several nasty nerve agents, some of which COULD be whipped up in the lav in just a few minutes. Probably not enough to kill the whole plane, and I'm assuming the pilots have a seperate air supply, but killing half the passengers on a loaded airliner might be good enough to interest a terrorist.
Then there's biological agents. Some years ago I worked with cyanotoxins, primarily anatoxin. Nasty stuff, and available at any nice warm, eutrophic lake in the U.S. I was playing around with extracting the toxin, and ended up with a protocol that used DMSO as a solvent to help seperate the toxin from cellular membranes. This stuff used to scare me to death -- a nice liquid that, if splashed on your skin (or clothing) would cause death in a matter of minutes. Imagine a squirt-gun or a water-balloon filled with this on a plane.
For the record, I'm far more frightened of the current Government that I am of terrorists, and I'd rather just take my chances that submit to the "protections" that are being provided. However, it doesn't take a lot of effort to come up with some plausible scenarious where a lunch-box might conceal some fairly deadly things.
"Except Nitro Glycerine would most likely detonate the second you had any turbulence, or even upon takeoff, given how unstable it is."F light_434
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_
How about this for logic. If it has been done then it is is possible.
Yes Virgina somebody manged to smuggle nitroglycerin on to an airliner and use it as a bomb.
Nitro is nasty stuff but you all have been watching too many old movies. They used to ship the stuff in wagons over dirt roads. It did blow up every now and then but it isn't impossible to transport.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/17/airport.evac.ap/i ndex.html
leave the hillbilly jokes out, please.
"One man's "magic" is another man's engineering."-- Robert A. Heinlein
Yes.
Let's also make a special line for Jews.
Catholics? You're next.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It's an unpleasant topic...
Yes, it is. Because it once again brings into focus how the internet tends to fuel the psychoses of paranoid schizophrenics worldwide. These people need help, but instead the internet just helps them descend further into madness. It's 9/11, it's chemtrails, it's Morgellons, and above all it's depressing to watch.
Ok you do it an a plane washroom that is bouncing about the sky and that every one elas is trying to get in. But then you can probably pee statnding up in said washroon too and hit the bowl every time.
Actually, it's fairly simple to do that. Just use your legs so that they are firmly against the side walls (feet) and lean forward with your palm (non-holding) forward so that you're at an angle. Then use the other arm to properly aim. Works like a charm.
Yeah, learned it in the military, having to p out that small hole they give you there. Fun being strapped into the webbing though.
I said, properly trained. That's why they were doing a dry run.
Now, for fun, want to guess how you do it upside down?
To an engineer a technical problem is fun. To a non-engineer a technical problem is impossible.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
but you make the point for low taxes and very little government involvement in any part of our lives
What a great idea. The world wide web (created by a multi-government funded organization) and the internet (created by a government funded organization) are seriously useless to society. Global communication is overrated. That includes the global telecommunication network (more munti-government funding in its lifetime, such as Morse's 30k government grant for the US telegraph network).
Heck, since we canned that, let's look at those eyesore highways, more government clutter. Who needs to travel anyway?
With the breakdown in travel and communication, there is no need for government anymore, so we can just live in communes and grow our own organic veggies powered by happy sunshine and vegetarian hippie poop.
peace
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
"it has already been done on a plane, years ago."
Surely you mean: some people planned to do something similar but the plans were thwarted after they tried to make a bomb and accidentally set fire to their own apartment.
The point, as the OP didn't quite make clear, is that you'd not be able to make enough of this exceedingly unstable mixture to do more than hurt or kill yourself, and possibly take the bathroom out of commission.
Not exactly the glorious martyrdom that they'd likely been planning for themselves. But hey, if the plan was to injure or kill only yourself and embarrass your cause in the process, then sure.
Kythe
no you cannot appease them
However, we can stop toppling their sovereign leaders, establishing military presence without consent of the people, and sending their citizens to foreign prisons without trial.
If any of the above happened in the US because the government allowed it, would you stand for it?
I rest easier on an airplane knowing that we're soundly protected from the most bizarre Hollywood movie plot type attacks, desperately trying not think about all the simple, easy practical things the idiots running things have overlooked.
The real terrorists have got to be laughing their asses off at the way we snarl air traffic, tie up millions of dollars in police resources, botch up air travel and twist ourselves in nervous knots over nothing. I'll bet they're more than a little amused at the video of people throwing toothpaste and hair gel into dumpsters.
If the terrorist plan is to make us live in fear, scared of our shadow and squander our national treasure on security that doesn't work while we go into staggering national debt spending 5 billion a month in a no-win war half-way around the world, then I'd ask which political party is really helping the terrorists?
A small group of people could cause mass panic and a surprising amount of damage armed with nothing more dangerous than a little training and a cigarette lighter or box of kitchen matches. We are so easily spooked, then our over-reaction and fear takes the little bit of damage the terrorists actually do and magnifies it to absurd proportions. Remember the panic and fear on the east coast when the sniper and his kid were on the loose? There were road blocks, random searches, helicopters, overtime for police...one guy with a rifle. Un-fucking-real.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
As a follow up, some people aren't realizing that it isn't necessary to actually have a chemical reaction and form an organic peroxide molecule to make an explosive. A solution of oxidizer and fuel can easily be a shock sensitive explosive. This requires higher concentration peroxide than is available off the shelf, but concentrating a modest amount is not very challenging.
The feasibility of this really isn't open for debate. There is no doubt that you can reliably mix two liquids and produce a high explosive that can be detonated with a sharp impact.
A quest for perfect safety from all conceivable threats is, of course, ridiculous, but I'm sure there will be many more added security measures thrown in as a result of this, to little real benefit and much general annoyance. Personally, I would have been completely comfortable flying immediately after 9/11 with absolutely no additional security measures. Statistics and probability leave me with no fear of terrorism.
John Carmack
Depends on how conveniently you define "recent". There have been both Catholic and Protestant acts of terrorism in Ireland; there's the Basques, mostly Roman Catholics, in Spain. I couldn't find any information about the religious links of Greece's "November 17" terrorists or ELA.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Not only is this plan feasible, but a terrorist had already detonated such a device on board an aircraft. In 1995 Philippines Airlines Flight 434 was the target of a bomb left by al-Qaeda terrorist Ramzi Youssef on an earlier leg of the flight. The bomb cut Japanese businessman Haruki Ikegami in half, and ripped through the passenger compartment into the cargo hold. The aircraft lost primary and backup hydraulic controls and had to be flown in via throttles -- a difficult and dangerous maneuver.
Not only that, but the bomb that Youssef left on board that flight was one tenth the power of the bombs he intended to detonate as part of Operation Bojinka. The argument that such a weapon is not feasible is itself more FUD. It is quite possible, and it has been done before. Al-Qaeda operatives are trained in explosives, and they knew exactly what was doing.
Yes, there's a good chance of killing yourself while mixing such a bomb, but I rather doubt that any of the plotters of this attack had any qualms about killing themselves in the process.
but why even bother blowing up the plane? The security lines at airports are going to be incredibly dense and an airport has plane-loads of people in it. A coordinated simultaneous detenation of something inside the airport would work just as well.
When was the last time you went through a security checkpoint to get IN the airport?
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Dude, when even the slashdot crowd thinks you're crazy, it's time to re-examine your life.
A few verbal slips and some video that you don't understand as a lay person do not a huge conspiracy make. Occam's Razor should be applied, as usual.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Because they're scared of them. Moderate muslims in my country who voice their opinion are often threatened, one told of a meeting with an imam and his bodyguards, they threatened him with knives. Immigrant politician Naser Khader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naser_Khader lives under constant police protection.
Outnumbering those you disagree with is hardly enough if they're better organised and willing to go to extremes.
Hmm... seems like we have to call in the Mythbusters on this one...
And you would be wrong.
Most of those being "harrased" in this manner have no love for western society in the first place. How much harm can you really create by harrasing people who would be quite happy to make your nation part of a Global Caliphate?
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, there is a huge difference between disliking something and being willing to turn to violence against it; and it is that difference that keeps the vast majority of the population from day to day. If your actions change someone from "dislikes the west, but is peaceful and law-abiding" to "hates the west and will attack when given the opportunity", then congratulation, you've just created a terrorist. I'd call that harmful.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bojinka
These guys actually blew up the bathroom in a plane with a cut down bomb for testing. After blowing up a movie theater seat.
Take off every 'sig' !!
You're right, but you're wrong. Sure, the O2 for the passengers is generated that way, but there are also O2 bottles stored in some of the overhead compartments for the use of cabin personnel, so that they can strap them on and assist passengers.
You owe the GP an apology.
(And if I hadn't already posted in this topic, I'd have probably modded you down.)
-- Alastair
I'm not saying you're wrong. But "liquid" was perhaps the wrong term.
The question is whether undetectable, binary liquid bombs are feasible. To be undetectable, they couldn't be nitrogen-based explosives, as that is what all the detectors sniff for.
So the question is, could a two-part, non-Nitrogen-based liquid explosive (so called peroxide bombs) be smuggled onto a plane and then make a large enough explosion to bring it down?
It seems rather unlikely to me, with only a light skimming of the info. But I could easily be wrong. That's why I found the slashdot post interesting (although I didn't read the article, as I don't read the Register anymore due to rampant BS from them).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Catholics? You're next.
Er, nope, catholics (or just "irish accent") are previous not next - they have already been done, before we got onto the muslims.
That's in the UK at least - in the US I guess the catholics were "freedom fighters we send money to" rather than "terrorists", but hey, what's a few nail-bombs between friends.
I'd like to second John's comments. He only has explored the trade space near realistic rocket fuels in depth; if you go outside it, there are whole categories of off the shelf, well known in the explosive industry explosive liquids.
TATP is about the dumbest possible route to a liquid explosive on a plane.
With any actual knowledge of explosives, any professional could come up with a few dozen easy options for alternate binary liquid explosives, or even pre-mixed liquid explosives which appear to be innocent sports drinks or sodas or wine or liquor, some of which could be safely drunk in moderate quantities to fool a security checkpoint guard into thinking it's a safe substance.
Several of these mixtures have no nitrogen whatsoever, and all of them have densities that don't alert the density-sensitive x-ray equipment.
Explosives experts have been quietly screaming at transportation security experts about this for years. Finally, once someone is caught trying it on a big scale, they listen.
I've been trying to explain along the lines of TFA ever since this supposed terror plot came to light.
Yes, if they were using sensitised nitromethane, or pre-prepared gelled Acetone Peroxide, then it is very much plasuible.
But everything i've read claims that they were supposedly planning to synthesise AP on the plane.
Now, you start off with your Hydrogen Peroxide, say 35%, and you could have this pre-mixed with your acid catalyst - say conc. Hydrochloric or Sulfuric Acid. You only need a small amount of acid - and HCl doesn't react anywhere near as exothermically as conc. H2SO4. So this pre-prepared mixture could conceivably be handled quite safely - it's certainly nothing like 'Pirhana Fluid', which IIRC, is equal volumes of conc. H2SO4 and H2O2.
So this mixture can be mixed, on the plane, with acetone. Now, it needs to be done in an ice bath, - sure, maybe you can MacGyver this up on board somehow - and after waiting hours for the reaction to complete, the product needs to be filtered out and dried. In my opinion, this would be the hardest part to complete on the plane, and the hardest to conceal. It would be easier trying to get snakes on the plane.
TFA does mention something particularly scary in the context of aircraft terror - Dimethylmercury.
In a couple of bottles of eye drops or something, you would probably have enough to give everybody on the plane a lethal dose. No fancy delivery system needed, just drop it on the floor and let the volatility, vapour pressure and air circulation system do the rest.
And you wouldn't know a damn thing for months.
Score:4, Insightful? Come on.
I am not a terrorism "expert"; just someone who likes to keep the "story" consistent with the way I've seen the world work. This "horde of Islamic fundamentalists" stuff is just fearmongering. Think about it.
The goal of Islamic jihadists (at least, the ones we care about-- Al Qaeda, right?) is to remove those people who stand in the way of a Muslim state. The reason why they target not just Westerners (who clearly stand in the way-- we introduct Democracy, corporate influence, and lifestyles unacceptable to orthodox Muslims), but other Muslims, is because of one thing: the "plague" of material goods. This political philosophy was strongly advocated by a person named Sayyid Qutb). The line of reasoning is that anyone "infected" by the obsession of ownership will fail to remain a Muslim because they will do anything in order to fulfill their desires. Community and tradition fall apart. Qutb argued that leaders who pushed for Westernization, mainly in the form of economic reforms, were secretly (or perhaps unknowingly) destroying Islam. Therefore, those leaders could be, in good conscience, put to death. Later followers of Qutb's political theory, like Ayman Zawahiri (mentor to Osama bin Laden) expanded on that theory, saying that anyone who follows the Western model of capitalism can be rightfully put to death. Hence, death to other Muslims, death to the people working in the WTC.
But I doubt there is one, pervasive political philosophy throughout the Middle East. There are many different tensions, the result of many different historical conflicts. Part of the reason why there is so much fighting is that Muslims tend not to forget about those conflicts (tradition is important, remember?)-- another is the continuing destabilizing force the West has been throughout the years, playing those historical tensions against each others, for poltical and economic reasons (read: oil & power). Certainly, though, Qutb/Zawahiri's philosophy is the view held by Al Qaeda. So far, they're the only terrorists who actually seem to want to expand the conflict beyond the Middle East.
My question is this, if Al Qaeda is really composed of as many smart people as our government, media, and terrorism "experts" say they are, why haven't they realized that a few dozen bombs ain't exactly going to halt the massive machinery put in place by the military, industry, and politicians? It seems to me that "world domination" isn't their goal. Fear of "world domination" is just the boogeyman that our media keep throwing out at us to keep us happily supporting the $80 billion/yr money pump to war profiteers.
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).
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Some fires? Would that "some" include the fire raging across several floors for several hours that was pretty much unattended as the resources were stretched so thin?
If you're searching for the truth why would you accept the claim that there were only "some" fires when there is plenty of documentary evidence to the contrary? Could it be because it doesn't fit in with your world view and you are unwilling to accept anything that isn't spoon fed to you by the Alex Joneses of this world, who make quite a good living out of regurgitating this shit.
No doubt this is all false as it's a government body but why don't you read this and try to refute their claims: http://wtc.nist.gov/
First of all, a terrorist will have access to the information regardless. That group appearantly knew how to make it, and I doubt they had the bright idea and if they did, that they didn't share it.
A "normal" person, even equipped with the info, would not go ahead and say "oh, it's a nice day, let's commit suicide and blow up a plane". Would you? I wouldn't.
What it comes down to is that when a government lies, blatantly enough that it's obvious at least to a small group of people, conspiracy runs rampart. The group will say "ok, what the feds say is BS because (insert info from TFA here)" and the next group will go "they lied! They're hiding something! (insert some conspiracy here)".
What it comes down to isn't more safety. The only thing accomplished is that the government becomes less trustworthy and less credible. People read the 'net, they don't rely on CNN alone anymore. Actually, the more faith is lost in the official information, the more people will turn to other sources, often enough those sources are even MORE unreliable than the official ones, but become more credible simply by the fact that they are NOT official.
For reference, see the former communist states. Everyone there believed what the west media said, simply because it was forbidden to hear them, because they knew their own media were lying and thus everyone who said anything else was automatically credible.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
'So they planted some thermite' ,and when it burns through, it's still going to fall down, not burn sideways. Look at the footage again, the WTC 1&2 collapse started in the impact areas, did your conspiritors just get lucky & put thermite in that area - or did they put enough thermite on every floor to start a pancake?
That's the issue. It takes hundreds of pounds of high explosives to 'pull' a building the size of WTC 7, strategicly placed in cuts on the support posts.
Thermite is not an explosive, it is an extremely exothermic Red-OX reaction - a hot burn if you will, and fast - but not explosive. You are looking at trying to cut 25-75 vertical beams (conservative number), each over an inch thick, with a material that's going to try to fall as soon as it melts the surface of the beam you've attached it to. OK so we just place it where the beams join the floor - except don't you think someone would notice people ripping up an entire floor - clearing the concrete/matrix from around those joints, and carting in cases of thermite. Oh
I stand by the statement, you don't use thermite to bring down a building. Not by burning out it's supports anyway. It's not the right tool for the job.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks