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Exclusive: TSA Issues Secret Warning on ‘Catastrophic’ Threat to Aviation
The Intercept ^ | 2/26/15 | Jana Winter

Posted on 02/26/2015 1:02:09 PM PST by illiac

The Transportation Security Administration said it is unlikely to detect and unable to extinguish what an FBI report called “the greatest potential incendiary threat to aviation,” according to a classified document obtained by The Intercept. Yet despite that warning, sources said TSA is not adequately preparing to respond to the threat.

Thermite — a mixture of rust and aluminum powder — could be used against a commercial aircraft, TSA warned in a Dec. 2014 document, marked secret [PDF here]. “The ignition of a thermite-based incendiary device on an aircraft at altitude could result in catastrophic damage and the death of every person onboard,” the advisory said.

TSA said it is unlikely to spot an easy-to-assemble thermite-based incendiary device during security screening procedures, and the use of currently available extinguishers carried on aircrafts would create a violent reaction. The TSA warning is based on FBI testing done in 2011, and a subsequent report.

(Excerpt) Read more at firstlook.org ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: foreign; news; terrorism; terrorthreat; thermite; tsa
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To: baltimorepoet
"light off"?? Why, if you're a terrorist, take that risk?

Just use potassium permanganate and glycerin in separate chambers in a plastic capsule with a soft plastic barrier between them. Surround the capsule with the thermite compound, leaving the area of the capsule which has the barrier exposed. Drop a drop of any industrial acid on the barrier, walk away. A few seconds or minutes later (determined by the plastic of the capsule and the strength of the acid), it's ignition time.

Ah, the wonders of spontaneous AND no-flame combustion.

41 posted on 02/26/2015 2:07:21 PM PST by SAJ
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To: Afterguard

Really?...I could see it burning the paper....but even a 1000 lbs of thermite didnt burn all the way through a car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPAYZMzGMwQ


42 posted on 02/26/2015 2:10:01 PM PST by Crim (Palin / West '16)
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To: dinodino

but the cabin interior is appropriate for onboard fire extinguishers.

fire on plane is bad no doubt but hyping the effects is not a good idea either.


43 posted on 02/26/2015 2:19:51 PM PST by Bidimus1
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To: cherry; ntnychik; potlatch
it would be just like the central planners to sacrifice a few thousand Americans in a horrible plane crash into a building, arena, racetrack etc just to show other Americans how horrible the pubs are for demanding accountability in govt expenditures....

would not put it past them...

Your modest proposal typifies Operation Northwoods submitted to the 35th president.

OPERATION NORTHWOODS

In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba [includes cover memoranda], March 13, 1962, TOP SECRET, 15 pp.


44 posted on 02/26/2015 2:23:13 PM PST by PhilDragoo (Hussein: Islamo-Commie from Fakistan)
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To: illiac

OoooH the dreaded thermite bomb. LOL!


45 posted on 02/26/2015 2:32:35 PM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: USMCPOP

Have you seen the TSA agents? Do you really think they took chemistry in high school .... in fact do you really think they even finished high school? From the ones I’ve seen, it probably takes two of them to go to the bathroom.


46 posted on 02/26/2015 2:39:58 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet (Truth is treason in the Empire of lies. - Ron Paul)
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To: JohnG45

How about the FBI/CIA fake Al Shabaab video the other day threatening shopping malls. They should have been embarrassed to even present that one as it was so obviously fake.


47 posted on 02/26/2015 2:45:11 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet (Truth is treason in the Empire of lies. - Ron Paul)
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To: illiac

“Well, the TSA may as well tell that we have trouble spotting certain things....”

They just did.

Look for thermite bombs to begin blowing planes out of the sky.


48 posted on 02/26/2015 2:58:15 PM PST by Jack Hammer
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To: RetiredTexasVet

“Have you seen the TSA agents? Do you really think they took chemistry in high school .... in fact do you really think they even finished high school? From the ones I’ve seen, it probably takes two of them to go to the bathroom.”

Yes. I spent a few hours observing TSA agents in Dulles International Airport in VA while waiting for relatives to arrive. The white ones looked like fat underachievers from high school days. The token hires, like people you see wandering around in various international airports. One step up from cabbies.


49 posted on 02/26/2015 3:08:08 PM PST by USMCPOP (Father of LCpl. Karl Linn, KIA 1/26/2005 Al Haqlaniyah, Iraq)
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To: USMCPOP

50 posted on 02/26/2015 3:09:30 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: hadaclueonce
or “Burn Notice” to burn through an engine block...

Saw a demonstration of this one with my own eyes when I was a soldier once and young ...

51 posted on 02/26/2015 3:14:54 PM PST by tx_eggman (Liberalism is only possible in that moment when a man chooses Barabas over Christ.)
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To: Bidimus1

I work in aerospace and I have also experimented with thermite, and I my opinion is that if a thermite charge goes off in the cabin, bar the door, Katie. The aircraft is probably going to go down. Either the cabin interior will ignite, the thermite charge will burn through some flight-critical system, or both.


52 posted on 02/26/2015 6:00:53 PM PST by dinodino
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To: illiac

As long as they keep sticking their hands down the pants of snow bird grannies and grandpas, everything will be safe.


53 posted on 02/26/2015 6:31:29 PM PST by SaraJohnson
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To: AEMILIUS PAULUS

We’re subjected to more and more ludicrous and extreme “security” theater because the government absolutely refuses to control immigration and visas from Muslim countries.


54 posted on 02/26/2015 7:33:08 PM PST by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens")
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To: dinodino

Never said it would be a good idea...

Just that if thermite burns down( and its the only way it is going to go) it would have to hit control or fuel system to disable the aircraft directly, and yes cabin fires are extremely bad (see Canary island 747 crash) but there have been improvements in fire retardation in the cabin of newer airliners.


55 posted on 02/26/2015 8:22:30 PM PST by Bidimus1
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