Please check out Ramsey Yousef's device at google if you have not seen it before. It was quite a nasty little thing and he even tested one on Singapore Airlines(could be dif. airline). His was a leave behind device that he could set and then get himself off the plane at a planned stopover. One person can not pull that off anymore probably, but multiples might be able to get it together.
Okay... here:
US prosecutors said the device was a "Mark II" "microbomb". Casio digital watches were used as the timers, stabilizers that looked like cotton wool balls, and an undetectable nitroglycerin liquid as the explosive. Other ingredients included small amounts of sulfuric acid, nitrobenzene, silver azide, liquid acetone, and nitrate. Two 9-Volt batteries taken from children's toys were used to heat light bulb filaments and detonate the nitroglycerin. The wiring was attached to the arm of the watch using a tiny space under the calculator. The cavity was so small that the watch was worn normally. Yousef smuggled the batteries past airport security in the hollowed out heels of his shoes. He smuggled the nitroglycerin on board using a contact lens solution bottle.
I have not flown since 9/11. But, before that, I flew in and out of the San Jose airport frequently.
The airport screeners would usually check my briefcase by rubbing the seams with a sampling patch which was then applied to what I took to be a portable gas chromatograph or NMR analyzer, ostensibly to sniff for traces of nitrates.
Again, that was pre-9/11. By now, one would assume that the TSA (in addition to searching old ladies in wheelchairs) will have (a) improved our chemical-sniffing capabilities to the point that the Ayatollah Ramsey's "contact lens" solution would not escape, (b) have deployed such facilities all over the U.S.
Yes, no?
Traces of bombmaking chemicals have very distinct signatures and if we're not to the point of being able to detect them on passengers and luggage, Bush and his lieutenants have failed us - "Big time". That should have been an even higher priority than ensuring that all grandmothers in wheelchairs get thoroughly searched, even!
The fact that the Islamikazis *haven't* pulled another stunt like Youssef did, is actually rather encouraging.