Shoebomber 2.0 in De-troy-it

[KrazyHorse]

In actuality, the current risk from air travel is probably far lower than I've already stated. Cockpit doors are now locked, while airline passengers do not sit passively and allow people to **** with their flight any more.

This guy was planning to detonate 80 grams of explosive on a large airliner. He MIGHT have been able to kill himself and a couple of other people if everything had gone his way. Big ****ing deal. I can go out, get a couple of shotguns from Walmart and kill 10, 20 or 30 random people any ****ing day I feel like it.

In order to deal with this enormous threat to US national security, the response is to massively inconvenience millions of people.

What a load of ****ing nonsense.

[rah]

Agreed, the terrorists win again.
Let them blow us their own genitals. I don't care.

[Guynemer]

Precisely.


We can never, ever, ever protect ourselves from a lone wackadoo nutjob, or several of the same. It simply isn't possible. The resources spent on trying to accomplish this are wasted. It's all political grandstanding, because Americans are complete ****ing pussies, and we want to be told that everything is going to be all right. Well, it won't. Life is ****ing risky. Those resources could be better spent elsewhere to truly reduce risk, but no one would get elected doing that, because the American public is ****ing retarded.


Christ, the holidays really do piss me off, I guess.

[KrazyHorse]

As mentioned by Laz, the truly successful terrorist attacks since Sept. 11 have hit much softer targets than airliners. Buses, trains, nightclubs. None of these places have anywhere near the security measures in place that airports do.

We have swung way too far in the direction of "security" on airplanes. I can think of no other sector where we spend as much money or create as much inconvenience for as little incremental increase in security as we do in air travel.

****ing nervous ninnies.

[Drake Tungsten]

Then you're going to have to explain why the police aren't scanning every Baltimore resident's possessions 6 or 10 times a day.

The police are most likely too scared of Baltimore residents.

Success? As far as I can tell a full detonation would have breached the outer hull, but wouldn't have come close to taking down the plane.

Punching a hole in the outer hull is how you bring down a plane, you dumb ****. Go read about Pan Am 103...

[KrazyHorse]

, you dumb ****. The hole in Pan Am 103 was over half a meter wide. There is absolutely no way that 80 grams of the **** explosive he was trying to use would have done that to the airplane.

By the way, Lockerbie was caused by ~450 g of much higher quality explosive

EDIT: by the way, IIUC part of the reason Semtex is much better than PETN is that Semtex DOES detonate fully with an electronic trigger while lighting PETN on fire with a match (or whatever) isn't a reliable method of achieving uniform detonation

[Drake Tungsten]

There is absolutely no way that 80 grams of explosive would have done that to the airplane.

Explosive in Detroit terror case could have blown hole in airplane, sources say

I can't say for certain whether 80 grams of PETN could have blown a 20-inch hole in the outer hull of the Northwest flight, but no one involved with the investigation seems to think the threat wasn't a serious one.

[KrazyHorse]

If you want to visualize the quantities involved, 80 g of this stuff is about 3 tablespoons. 450 g of Semtex is about a cup's worth.

There's a big difference. Especially when you realize that the Semtex is actually going to go BOOM while half the time the PETN isn't.

[MrFun]

I can't say for certain whether 80 grams of PETN could have blown a 20-inch hole in the outer hull of the Northwest flight, but no one involved with the investigation seems to think the threat wasn't a serious one.

Well of course - the investigators wanted to make this look really serious so they can parade around, making themselves look more important than they really are.

By the way, in all seriousness, I agree with KH and Guy - all this hysteria and overreacting by officials is STOOOOOPID.

[KrazyHorse]

Even if one of these ***** succeeds in bringing down an airplane every 10 years, it drops all the relevant risks that I calculated by a factor of 10 (300 dead instead of 3000)

That would mean that the average airline passenger is only 2/3 as dangerous as the average New York City resident.

[Felch]

Stop being unpatriotic KH! Can't you see that the only solution is to give the brave heroes in the TSA full authority to examine our toothpaste!?!?!!?

[Drake Tungsten]

ABC has video of a government test of a 50-gram PETN bomb on an airliner (equivalent to the shoe bomb Richard Reid tried to set off). Doesn't look dangerous at all...

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9437470

[rah]

It's nice to know that it takes the terrorists a month to train someone to blow up their dick.

[Drake Tungsten]

By the way, Lockerbie was caused by ~450 g of much higher quality explosive

By the way, Semtex isn't a "much higher quality explosive" than PETN. Semtex is made up of around 95% PETN and has an equivalent R.E. factor. Semtex's only advantage is in its superior stability and ease in detonation.

[KrazyHorse]

ABC has video of a government test of a 50-gram PETN bomb on an airliner (equivalent to the shoe bomb Richard Reid tried to set off). Doesn't look dangerous at all...

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9437470

And how was that explosive distributed, you jackass? I guarantee you that it wasn't clumped in a single packet strapped to some dude's ****. They probably broke it into 20 pieces and detonated them electronically at exactly the same moment.



A couple of kilos of Semtex broken into pieces and wrapped around the columns of a building will bring the building down. A couple of kilos of Semtex in a clump in the basement won't do ****.