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Man Tries To Use Explosive Device On US Flight
reporter writes with news that a Nigerian man allegedly attempted to set off a small explosive device — possibly a firecracker — on a Delta Airbus 330 airliner bound for Detroit yesterday. "There was a pop and then smoke wafted through the cabin. A passenger then climbed over several seats, lunged across the aisle and managed to subdue the suspect, the eyewitnesses said. The Nigerian man was placed in a headlock before being dragged up to the first class cabin. Passenger Zeina Seagal told CNN that after the suspect was collared and parts of his burning pants were removed, flight attendants quickly grabbed fire extinguishers and doused the fire at his seat." The man has claimed links to al-Qaeda, though the investigation hasn't confirmed that yet. (They're not taking anything for granted given that his pants were literally on fire.)
The new rules are hilarious however:
- Not allowed to have any items or anything on your lap for the last 1 hour of flight
- Not allowed to go to toilet during that time either
- Crew doesn't tell about cities or landmarks so passengers don't know where they are flying (it's so hard to time that on clock)
What is that going to improve?
according to Danish newspaper BT.dk he tried to mix a bag of powder with some liquid chemicals he had in a syringe
And there was a great big fizzing sound as his device failed to accomplish it's task with was either a detonation or an incendiary intended to burn the plane out of the sky.
Since it was in his, ahem, pants or pocket he burned himself where it hurts effectively removing himself from the gene pool either by a lifetime of incarceration or more directly by incineration.
You'd like to think, ouch that's gotta hurt but then who has sympathy for someone attempting to kill other people with explosives or flames?
In a way you want the lone wolf jihadies to come out of the woodwork and fail since they illuminate their otherwise low key network connections. It's sorta like a flash light in the darkness of terror plots by individuals or states.
The perpetrator is claiming he received the explosives from Al-Qaeda in Jemen. He did visit Jemen before boarding this flight, so that is quite likely the source.
Also, it was a binary explosive: he was trying to inject liquid chemicals into solid chemicals strapped to his legs. They exploded mildly, but mostly set him on fire - that was were the bang and fire came from. Right then a Dutch passenger jumped over a few chairs and subdued him. Although I've read reports that the terrorist was "sitting dazed in his chair" - he'd probably expected to die right there, and when he didn't he was in shock.
Binary explosives are a bit hard to mix and if you don't get it right, you don't get a big bang. Also, it looks like there was no containing vessel so the bang could have been like gunpowder in the open: a big flash but apart from that, nothing much.
I'm wondering that kind of chemicals they were using though, because he was checked by security and nothing showed up on the scanners. He probably had the nitrogen-rich stuff strapped to his legs and harmless-looking stuff in his handluggage.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
So every muslim that still wants to fly the plane is a terrorist. You're not thinking this through ;)
If it works, why not? Are you going to claim some kind of Bacon allergy?
Surely people on Slashdot won't dismiss a functional idea because it makes you laugh?
No, people are dismissing that "functional idea" because it's born out of the most disgusting type of xenophobia.
Binary explosives are a bit hard to mix
That's an understatement.
The TSA itself has admitted that it is nearly impossible to pull off:
The preparation of these bombs is very much more complex than tossing together several bottles-worth of formula and lighting it up. In fact, in recent tests, a National Lab was asked to formulate a test mixture and it took several tries using the best equipment and best scientists for it to even ignite. That was with a bomb prepared in advance in a lab setting. A less skilled person attempting to put it together inside a secure area or a plane is not a good bet. You have to have significant uninterrupted time with space and other requirements that are not easily available in a secured area of an airport.
2.04.2008 More on the Liquid Rules: Why We Do the Things We Do
That's right -the TSA has admitted that binary explosives are essentially impossible to pull off, and yet they still insist on on the totally pointless liquid restrictions.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I've done the same thing a few times and there are a number of problems.
The first is it's one thing to spend over night or most of a day traveling by train instead of most of a day "flying" (flying, say, from NYC to Palm Beach consists of approximately 3-4 hours of flying, but a little over two hours of "getting there, checking in, going through security, making sure you're way early due to paranoia, etc", umpteen hours of layovers, and at least thirty minutes of baggage claims, plus another thirty to sixty minutes of getting out of the air port and getting to your destination), but generally with Amtrak it's a little of both, multiplied.
I've taken the train from Palm Beach to NYC, it's around 26-30 hours, depending on the precise train you take and how much it's delayed. In practice, that's most of two days, plus a night.
Then there's the cost. A bedroom (which is what you describe, roomettes don't include showers - and the "toilet" in them isn't something you'd want to use given it's not enclosed) generally costs around $500-1,000 per night on top of the regular fares. Roomettes are a little cheaper, $300-500 per night, generally, but are even less comfortable and, like I said, you wouldn't want to use the toilet and you have to share a shower. Again though, you add fares to that. You can forgo both and sit in the standard seats, which are certainly more comfortable than airline seats, for something more competitive with airlines, but for a minimum of 26 hours?
Rail travel could be cheaper and could actually compete with the airlines. If Amtrak and CSX et al improved the track, including engaging in a program of electrification (which they should do anyway), and started using lighter, lower cost, rolling stock, they could run faster trains at lower cost, which in turn would increase passenger numbers exponentially and mean they could use the same rolling stock for more trips. Palm Beach to NYC is only 1,200 miles. At an average of 100mph, which is hardly rocket speed outside of the US, that trip could be done in 12-15 hours (depending on number of stops.) I think a huge contingent of people would be more than willing to go by train if you could get in a train in the morning and get off at your destination before the end of the day. Travel for ten hours in confusion and discomfort, or travel for fifteen in comfort. Not the world's hardest choice.
Alas, outside of the North East, I seriously think Amtrak sees itself as a state subsidized version of a Heritage Railway. In England, there Heritage Railways are limited to 25mph because they originally operated under a nineteenth century law making it easy to create independent railways that was never updated. In the US, Amtrak runs most of its East Coast trains at 25-30mph outside of the DC to Boston portion because the sodding track doesn't support faster speeds.
And then people turn around and complain that trains are obsolete and we shouldn't fund (and fix) Amtrak because railways are inherently slow and inflexible, while the French, Japanese, and even the post-Beeching British, scratch their heads and wonder what the hell happened to a country that was built by the railroads.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That's right -the TSA has admitted that binary explosives are essentially impossible to pull off, and yet they still insist on on the totally pointless liquid restrictions.
Philippine Airlines Flight 434 - one passenger killed and hole in the aircraft fuselage by just such a bomb.
From the vague and incompetent description by the news media, the explosive device sounds like Kinepak or something similar. This is a little tube filled with ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, plus proprietary stuff; to which you take a tube of red liquid (nitromethane and dye) and pour in the top. Eventually when the liquid soaks all the way through, you have a cap-sensitive blasting agent that's about as strong as dynamite when in a confined place. There's plenty of room for "operator error", though, as this material has to be handled properly if you want it to work. And it needs the right type of blasting cap. But even if he did everything right, I don't think it's powerful enought to bring down a jet unless it hit something critical.
In the line of trains: China just opened a line from Guangzhou to Wuhan, almost 1100 km, travel time is now under 3 hours, similar to flying. There are nine stops on the route, trains run at 350 km/h with top speed of almost 400 km/h. It's the fastest high-speed link in the world now. And a ticket costs something like RMB500 (USD 73), eight times the cost of a normal train ticket (10-11 hour trip) and a little less than a plane ticket.
With such a system you could do your route in like yours in about 6 hours.
Check-in for Chinese trains is also still simple: buy a ticket (preferably using cash), walk through a metal detector while your bag is scanned in an x-ray device, and walk on to your train. Very efficient. And that way easily competitive with airliners.
Well, it turns out he really is a son of a prominent nigerian banker. I'm not making this up :)
Rail travel could be cheaper and could actually compete with the airlines. If Amtrak and CSX et al improved the track, including engaging in a program of electrification (which they should do anyway), and started using lighter, lower cost, rolling stock,
I don't disagree with most of what you wrote, but I have to comment on this segment. First, regarding "lighter, lower cost rolling stock" there's a huge perception that the Acela service on the NEC corridor sucks because they train is too heavy, and in turn the train is too heavy because of FRA safety regs. Yes, the Acela is heavy, and yes the Acela is heavy because of safety regs (although the FRA regs were revised in the late 1990's to make accommodations for the Acela) but that's not the cause of any performance problems. I worked on the testing of the Acela trainsets in Pueblo and in NJ in 2000 and the trainset can sustain speeds of well over 150 mph for hours at a time. The power cars are plenty powerful - one of the Amtrak engineers on the project told me that if a trainset was powered by one PC instead of the normal two, the end-to-end (Bos-DC) run time would only be increased by 5 minutes). If you look at the cost of an Acela trainset, it falls within the range of other HSR trainsets like the ICE, TGV and Eurostar (albiet at the higher end). The Acela service sucks because it shares tracks with freight trains (in fact most of the NEC is dispatched by CSX and Norfolk Southern who tend to prioritize their trains over Amtrak trains), because the catenary south of NYC dates from the 10th century and can't handle high speeds, because there are a number of grade-crossings along the line north of NYC that the trains have to slow down for, and because the track has a lot of curves that the train has to slow down for.
In any event, the rolling stock is by far a minor cost compared with the total capital cost of an HSR system. Train track costs on the order of $1 million/mile for a single track. That costs does not include land acquisition, electrification, environmental review, the inevitable NIMBY litigation, mitigation costs, etc. And I agree that more electrification is something we need, but it's not just a matter of stringing wire. Bridges have to be raised to allow for the additional clearance for the catenary, if you're electrifying an existing line you have to do the work at night to minimize traffic disruption which means nighttime nose & lighting concerns, you have safety concerns (especially at crossings), you have to acquire more ROW for electrical substations, and so one. Combine all these costs with the perception that "transit needs to pay for itself" and you have a country unwilling to invest the hundreds of billions of dollars necessary for a world class rail system.