Comments on: Practical Chemistry

By: JMR

JMR — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:28:07 +0000

From the TSA Web Site today:

You have two options for carrying a crematory container with you on your flights:

Carry-on: You are allowed to carry-on a crematory container, but it must pass through the x-ray machine. If the container is made of a material that prevents the screener from clearly being able to see what is inside, then the container will not be allowed through the security checkpoint.

Checked Baggage: You may transport the urn as checked baggage provided that it is successfully screened. TSA will screen the urn for explosive materials/devices using a variety of techniques; if cleared, it will be permitted as checked baggage only.

Please note the following additional information:

Out of respect for the deceased, the screener may not open the container under any circumstance.
Crematory Container Materials: Crematory containers are made from many different types of materials, all with varying thickness. At present, TSA cannot state for certain whether your particular crematory container can successfully pass through an x-ray machine. However, TSA suggests that you purchase a temporary or permanent crematory container made of a lighter weight material such as wood or plastic that can be successfully x-rayed. The TSA will continue to work with funeral home associations to provide additional guidance in the future.
Please check with your air carrier about other restrictions that may apply.

By: John

John — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:57:00 +0000

However, they would not let you take your grandmother’s urn on the airplane due to biomedical hazards.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 10:29:59 +0000

I have no doubt that many hundreds of disaffected young Muslim men dream of inflicting such a blow. The problem is that they are just that, dreams. It would be practically impossible to craft TATP in an aircraft toilet, it would take a very long time, alterting staff and other passengers to an issue. Remember aircraft toilet doors are designed to be opened from the outside, just lift the small raised metal “Occupied” sign and see for yourself, on some aircraft the door can be completely removed externally at the hinges (El Al and many American carriers).

Anyway If I were plotting such a thing I would spend a lot more time and money making a more capable and stable liquid explosive such as Astrolite A or G outside of the UK and either ship it in or book a connecting flight through the UK to America.

This whole plot sounds real, fairly dangerous but doomed to failure, if the plotters could not see this themselves then they were clearly fools not terrorists.

So for ever more we cannot carry liquids on to flights? Is the loop hole closed? Are we secure? We’ll no…. powders will do, for example an Urn of your mothers ashes (containing Iron Oxide and Aluminium powders) and a funky looking necklace (made of a strip of Magnesium), add a match and you have a Thermite reaction that would burn right through the aircraft in about 15 seconds streaming molten Iron into the center fuel tank with the inevitable results.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:46:45 +0000

It looks like you’re not the only person who’s noticed this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/

On a tranatlantic flight with its relatively high-altitude flight, would the sudden shattering of windows and the increased pressure differential at those altitudes be enough to cause damage to the plane? I’m sure it wouldn’t do the passengers any good.
Of course my physics is based entirely on that episode of the twilight zone, with the gremlin on the plane wing :)

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:10:38 +0000

“planes are designed to land safely without windows”

Even Boeing ones? I didn’t think they were designed to safely do anything…

By: Mike Crichton

Mike Crichton — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:35:19 +0000

Slight correction: The peroxide used as hair bleach is 5%, the kind used as rocket fuel oxidizer is 90%. Not quite “a hundred times more concentrated”. Ya may want to fix that. Aside from that, good post. :-)

By: jasmine

jasmine — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 05:02:52 +0000

Actually, whether something is HE or not has nothing to do with detonation velocity. The fact that TATP is an entropy explosion does matter; it means that the substance is comparatively much less energetic than most explosives. It would takes about half a kilogram of TATP to lift a dustbin off the ground; how much would it take to open an aircraft hull? And no, putting it near a window doesn’t help; planes are designed to land safely without windows.

By: wrc

wrc — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 00:01:22 +0000

A detonation velocity of over 5000m/s puts it squarely in the high explosive category. Detonation, deflagration, or instant disassociation to gas is merely academic.

If these folks had a reliable method of quickly creating useful amounts of TATP on an aircraft, they’d have access to far more effective explosives that could just as easily be smuggled aboard.

Either this cell would have just ended up hurting themselves, or TATP is not the actual “plot device”.

By: jasmine

jasmine — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 19:11:51 +0000

How, then, do you get a (metal-cased) blasting cap on board a plane? They will show up on X-ray, you know. Plus the so-called “intelligence” told us that they were planning to smuggle on the precursors and actually make the TATP on the plane. So they’d have to smuggle some dry ice onboard too. It really doesn’t stand up.

By: Rocketnut

Rocketnut — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 19:04:07 +0000

All you really need to do is get the solution with the electronic detonator near a vulerable part of the plane, such as the emergency exit or a window, detonate it, and let the aerodynamic forces of a plane travelling at high altitude take over from there. The why of it working was in the San Jose Mercury News with illustrations today..