Posted on 12/27/2009 8:51:48 PM PST by Steelfish
Explosive on Flight 253 Is Among Most Powerful
By KENNETH CHANG December 27, 2009 Sewn into the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a powerful plastic explosive, the authorities say. Had Mr. Abdulmutallab, sitting in seat 19A of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Friday from Amsterdam to Detroit, been able to set off the explosive, it might have blown a hole in the side of the airplane and caused it to crash, experts believe.
Mr. Abdulmutallab, 23, a Nigerian citizen, was charged in a federal criminal complaint on Saturday with the willful attempt to destroy an aircraft with an explosive device. The complaint identified the explosive as pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN.
Introduced after World War I, PETN is in the same chemical family as nitroglycerin and among the most powerful of explosives. It was the same explosive that Richard C. Reid tried to detonate in his shoes during an American Airlines flight in December 2001.
But one characteristic of PETN is that it does not easily detonate, and that apparently thwarted Mr. Abdulmutallab, officials said. Dropping it or setting it on fire will not typically detonate it, explosive experts said.
Usually, a shock wave from a blasting cap or an exploding wire detonator is needed to set off PETN. Mr. Abdulmutallab was reported to have used a syringe to try to inject a liquid into the explosive.
“It sounds like he was trying to cause a chemical reaction that would initiate it, and that didn’t work out so well,” said Jimmie C. Oxley, an explosives expert and professor of chemistry at the University of Rhode Island.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Nice of the NYTimes to make it work for terrorists.
The Bojinka Plot
Ramzi Yousef was the architect of the original Bojinka Plots and the original nitroglycerin bombs. Yousef is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, which evolved from Bojinka.
Yousef was captured in 1995, Mohammed in 2003, but Bojinka continues.
" December 28th 2009 "
is not matching the date found on any of the linked published articles. All the dates have had to be changed.
Please do not change the title, date, source or author's name for any published material. Just copy and paste the date and title, source and author's name found on the publication. Thank you.
Yes- date corrected. Thanks
I wonder if bomb sniffing dogs can detect explosives such as PETN. If so I think it is time to get a crap load of them on domestic and international airports.
The NYT revealed nothing new.
Better details are available on the net.
Terrorists are trained (schooled) in these techniques and supplied the proper chemicals.
What little the MSM is revealing is not going to make any difference in what terrorists do.
What should be kept out of the MSM is the procedures we use to prevent this kind of attack. Of course, that cat is already out of the bag.
All the evidence and testimony so far indicates that the PETN was hidden in a condom, and stored anally. I don't think the dogs would have detected that.
We may have equipment that is sensitive enough to detect it anyway, but it is expensive, and it is not in use overseas.
It appears that al-Qaeda forgot one little thing: it takes a lot to detonate PETN.
Most powerful explosive? yeah, except it was a total DUD.
“Ah! Excuse me Granny, can I take your window seat for a few minutes??
“Well, yes, I’d like to get closer to the outer skin of this aircraft.
“But not to worry yourself, and I’m sorry that you will be taking the middle seat, but for only 25 minutes or so. Please move.
“Granny, do you mind if I borrow that little blanket?
“Thank you, you’re so kind!”
Now, let me just rub my thighs together, under granny’s blanket and we should be able to meet Allah, the great!
Rub, rub, rub!
AaaaaAH! Allah dammit, my Baaaaaaaallllls are on fire! AaaaaaAH!
More.
Stored anally? I have not read that yet. Where did you see that? Are you referring to a “puffer” type machine and would that machine be more reliably than a dog would be?
ping
First Shoes... now Underwear... Will we have to remove those also before boarding a plane? There’s gotta be a better way.
Like someone on one of the shows said the only way to really ensure security is with the type of searches the police would do...that I suppose would be strip searches like they do when one is booked for a crime.
Just think, before we can board a flight we are considered criminals until we can prove otherwise. But the Muzzzies get a free pass just cuz. Pc correctness can go you know where.
Maybe the point of this little exercise was to make our lives more difficult with the new mandatory cavity search.
he chicken out now we put him up in the RITZ..geez
The next time someone with experience will get it right, God forbid.
It’s frighteneing that such an incompetent boob screened
safe for this international flight.
Meanwhile an associate of mine was banned from travelling to Vegas because his picture I.D. had expired 5 days earlier.
Yep, real simple. It’s police state type behavior (think Nazi Gremany and the red “j” on peoples id papers) but everyone would need to declare their religion on their passports or other id papers, and those who are muslim or are from muslim countries receive separate screening. You won’t catch them all but you’ll make it harder on them and easier on us infidels. Better yet, don’t let muslims into the country and mass deport the ones already here, then we can dispense with the security systems for the most part, all together and we can live like we did in the 80’s under Reagan. Wouldn’t that be nice?
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