Currently, the Blair junta is holding Britain at red alert, believing that triacetone triperoxide is within minutes of being manufactured on planes and used to blow them up. At first sight, this seems reasonable. The explosive is easily made from three colourless liquids- hydrogen peroxide, which is common in antiseptic solutions, acetone, which is commonly used as a paint thinner and nail polish remover, and sulfuric acid, which is available from many sources as a battery electrolyte and drain cleaner.
But let’s be a little bit more critical here. You have to keep all of these three liquids separate from each other until you want to make TATP. You have to use highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide, which is not nice stuff at all- after all, it maimed and killed thousands of people during the Second World War, when the Nazis used it as oxidizer for their A-4 engines. It also gasses off oxygen constantly and reacts aggressively with plastics of all kinds, which makes carrying it anywhere a challenge. You have to use hydrogen peroxide at least a hundred times more concentrated than that which is used as a hair bleach. Oh, and peroxides are already banned in air travel. You have to mix the acetone with the hydrogen peroxide during the reaction, which is actually the hard part. Acetone plus hydrogen peroxide is actually a hypergolic reaction at room temperature. You have to keep the stuff cold to stop it reacting and producing water, carbon dioxide and heat. Oh, and the reaction when you add the sulfuric acid is strongly exothermic.
Then you need to filter and dry the product, and probably use a blasting cap to detonate it. Interestingly, one mole of explosive will produce three moles of cold gas; this means that for a couple of litres of reagent, the most gas that can possibly be produced is just over 75 litres. I can’t see that producing significant overpressure in a modern widebody jet of volume many hundreds of thousands of litres.
So, where’s the real evidence, Tony?
what worries me is if they can get the stuff through secruity, they could leave themselves enough time to make it on the ground before getting up in the air..
by doing so they take most of the risk out of makeing it in mid air, if a group were doing this you would say at least 3 people would be involed.to carry the chemicals in separte and two to keep watch as one makes it,
so in this case it matters not about if can can make it in the air. but make it on the ground before heading up which would still have the devasting effect on us if it was to happen,
the only other question would bewould they then only send one bomber up or all three on one plane…do they pretend to miss flight or just leave airport???
you can bring down a plane with a piece of wooden dowl 4 inches long diamiter 10 mm
Hi!
I’ve just translated to portuguese and published!
http://kiko.pro.vg/wordpress/?p=44
Thanks!
TATP is a high explosive. It has a detonation velocity of 5000m/s. Gas generation is not an issue. It is also (too) sensitive to heat, shock, friction, etc. That’s why it’s a such a ghetto explosive. If you could make anything more stable, reliable, or easier to work with, you would.
It is definitely not something you’d make in an airplane bathroom. Odds are anyone who tried would be treated for third-degree burns after the plane landed.
Actually, that’s all irrelevant. (And TATP isn’t really a high explosive, it’s an entropy explosive, which is similar to the materials used in car airbag propellant; it produces cold (comparatively) gas, not the hot gas one gets from high explosives. That’s why the volume of gas it produces is relevant.)
It’s not nearly as sensitive unless it is dried into crystalline form. That, also, is not something you can do in an aircraft bathroom. You need a blasting cap to set off a solution of TATP.
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..
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.
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”.
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.
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. :-)
“planes are designed to land safely without windows”
Even Boeing ones? I didn’t think they were designed to safely do anything…
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 :)
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.
However, they would not let you take your grandmother’s urn on the airplane due to biomedical hazards.
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.