Don’t you have to question how gently the baggage handler handled the baggage to cause a primer to detonate. Were the primers packaged or loosly thrown in a can or box?
I wondered too. You usually must work to get a primer to go off.
Even ramp rats, I thought previously, could not get that kind of force.
Aside- I knew a guy who made bullet clocks for competition awards. Typically a circle of .38 shells with undimpled primers and a clock movement from Micheal’s or the like on a nice stained wooden plaque. He took .38 shells, cleaned them up, and pressed in “inerted” primers. I asked him about his “inerting” process, and he said he put the primers in a 6” Griswold frying pan, put a “spatter screen” over it, and heated them on a gas stove until they popped! I never felt comfortable eating burgers over there unless they came off the grille...
I can’t think of a method of accidentally igniting a primer in a bag... If UPS is able to handle 5000 in a box,hundreds in a bag should not be an issue. The accidental ignition story stinks like a search for drugs that came up with primers.
Exactly what I was thinking. Primers in their original packaging are very stable. What caused them to go off? You could throw a box of primers on the floor and they wouldn't go off.