Posted on 08/10/2006 9:49:54 AM PDT by Sax
Q&A: Liquid explosives
An alleged plot to blow up planes from the UK mid-flight and cause "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said. It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on to as many as 10 aircraft.
BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the plan "revolved around liquids of some kind". One theory is that the attack may have involved liquid explosive being carried on to a plane in either drink bottles or cans. Dr Clifford Jones, an explosives expert from the University of Aberdeen, says even a small amount of liquid explosives carried on to an aircraft would result in a catastrophic explosion.
What are liquid explosives? The best place to start is with the term "high explosive"; these can be either solid or liquid. Of course, the most famous ones are solid, such as Dynamite and TNT.
One liquid explosive is a general use explosive that is used in quarries. However, I would not be surprised if it is possible to produce solid explosives in liquid form.
How do they work? Usually when something burns, it is subsonic and there is very little pressure effect. With high explosives, the rate of burning is extremely rapid and exceeds the speed of sound. As a result of that there is something called "overpressure" - pressure greater than the surrounding atmospheric pressure. Massive overpressure is not needed to cause damage. An excess of 1% can break windows, and an overpressure of 10% can harm or kill people and cause structural damage to buildings. An overpressure of just 2% could break the windows of the aeroplane, and 10% would wreck the aircraft and possibly kill the people in it before it reached the ground. By the time the damage is caused, the chemistry has finished and physics has taken over.
How are they made? There are such things as liquid explosives that are high explosives and they behave in exactly the same way as solid explosives, such as TNT. But there are also explosives that are made by mixing a solid and a liquid - one being the oxidant and the other being the fuel. Unlike most high explosives, they do not contain the fuel and oxidant in the same molecule but they do contain them in sufficiently close contact to cause a blast.
Are the components difficult to get hold of? No, it is very easy. Ordinary household substances could be used. Specialist knowledge or equipment needed to make? If someone wanted to obtain a solid high explosive in a liquid form, it would not be difficult for a trained chemical technologist. But if someone was using a backyard laboratory it is more likely they would go for the two component approach. Not a lot of experience is needed, the principles are quite simple but it would be a hazardous process of trial and error. I would not want to be messing about these things. It has been known for schoolboys to go home and attempt this and blow their house up.
Could an explosive device be carried on to an aeroplane? The size of a device necessary could be carried in hand baggage. Explosives in a toilet bag, certainly inside a shoulder bag would be enough to meet the terrorists' needs. They could be quite hard to detect because I do not think any of the things we have mentioned would respond to x-rays. For example, a liquid hydrocarbon fuel could pass as mineral water.
The question is how do you get something packed into a bag so it does not look suspicious?
Now that you mention it, I'm sure you're right.
I seem to remember the Cartwrights transporting nitroglycerin. It was the Barkleys who used the hearse, though.
Put this stuff into regular luggage, hook it to a remote-reciever and a detonator, change a cell phone so that it becomes a remote-sender, and boom.
Checked baggage is easier to search, I think....
On that note, I recently came across the millimeter-wave chemical sensor which suggests exactly how such detection might be performed....
Don't forget--no Diet Coke and Mentos, either!
Well, if a jihadist didn't know how to do it---they do now.
For years we speculated on what kind of corrosive or explosives could be brought on board in shampoo or water bottles. We were always surprised that there was no ban in place yet,
Yes, but the Captain always says to turn your cell phones off while plane is in the air. I'm sure that'll thwart anything like you suggested.
I could see them using some sort of x ray machine for all passengers or selected passengers, The x ray machines would probably catch something like that. My guess is they could probably take x rays of individuals secretly when they walk through the metal detectors or maybe newer redesigned metal detectors with x ray capabilities that some one would be looking at on the other side of the wall.
Astrolite.
Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. If they eliminated carry on luggage(except for purses maybe), not only wouldn't there be a big hassle, they'd have to cut down on all those TSA workers standing around.
The cons for this are you don't know what's happening to your stuff with the workers down below, and you're pretty much restricted to what the airline has to offer...ugh...
Yes... or the urinary catheter youre sporting... nice try, grampa... but nothing gets past us.
And absolutely NO adult diapers.
These terrorists.. Im so sick of them. There oughtta be a law. Theyre impinging on the rights of all free peoples with their shizzazz.
I have a question that I haven't heard anyone else ask yet. One of the things that are coming under scrutiny are baby bottles. Mothers, or some other member of their family, must taste the milk in front of security personnel before being allowed to bring the milk onboard the plane. This requirement tells us that they believe that liquid explosives may be smuggled on to airplanes in baby bottles. So, if that is the concern, this suggests that a terrorist would be bringing a BABY on board too. Why else would someone be carrying a baby bottle with milk in it unless a baby was traveling with them.
next maybe naked flights.
Yes, yes, but then itll get out that they were doing this, and therell be a million lawsuits, what with people claiming they got cancer from em, and whatnot
So what about a thin glass capsule with the nasty stuff suspended in the baby bottle, like the little glass capsule you break in a Cylume light stick.
They wouldn't even have to be booked on the same flight, just on a flight too so they can all get through security, and make the exchange inside the secured area.
In most homes the bleach and the ammonia share the same contiguous space but are never mixed together.
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