[Steel Wolf]

She could easily blow out a window and kill a few nearby passengers, unless she's an inpet fool like Richard Reid. I don't believe this would be a catastrophic event, but it would make for an uncomfortable and scary flight.

If she could get into the cockpit she could blow out the front windows and possibly disable the controls entirely. That's a lot of ifs, though. I carry an M203 grenade launcher, which has a 40mm round roughly half the size of a coffee mug. An HE round going off inside the cockpit of an aircraft would kill everyone inside and render that aircraft inoperable.

I don't know much about the structural weak points of a large aircraft, though. If the explosive was shaped correctly it would be more effective, but that would depend on what effect she's trying to cause. If it's simply to make a hole in the side of the plane, 12 oz probably won't be that big a deal. If she intends to kill the pilots, that's more likely to bring down the plane.

[breakem]

I carry an M203 grenade launcher, which has a 40mm round roughly half the size of a coffee mug.

Tough commute to work?

[eno_]

I carry an M203 grenade launcher, which has a 40mm round roughly half the size of a coffee mug. An HE round going off inside the cockpit of an aircraft would kill everyone inside and render that aircraft inoperable.

The grenade relies on shrapnel to kill (except, of course, for direct hits). However, in an airplane, especially more than 10,000 feet up, the pressure inside is substantially more than the pressure outside. The shockwave from high explosives would be the thing that rips a BIG hole in the airplane. Otherwide, you could be standing pretty near to that amount of HE when it goes off and lose only your hearing.

[boris]

"She could easily blow out a window and kill a few nearby passengers, unless she's an inpet fool like Richard Reid."

No comment. Too easy.

--Boris

[MissAmericanPie]

I'm just thinking, like a soldier falling on a granade, her body would absorb most of the explosion. I thought the explosive must be really powerful for it's net effect not to be offset by igniting in about 100lbs of flesh and bone.