Explosive device set off aboard airliner at Detroit Wayne International Airport

[lamont]

This would place the suspect in row 19 left of center. Just like Richard Reid, he was going for the fuel tank. This all goes back to Bojinka.

19A according to the guardian:

The device allegedly used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab involved a syringe and a soft plastic container filled, reportedly, with 80g of PETN. The remnants of the bomb are being analysed in an FBI laboratory.

PETN is relatively stable and is detonated either by heat or a shockwave. It is possible that the suspect used a syringe that was converted into an electrical detonator, but more likely the syringe was filled with nitroglycerin.

Abdulmutallab was in a window seat, 19A, and allegedly had the device strapped to his left leg, against the body of the plane. The idea was almost certainly to blow a hole at much higher altitude, so that the decompression would tear the aircraft apart.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...rate-explosive

[Tankguy]

I also wonder what secret forumla is used to deterimne who gets additional screening and who does not. When I was flying both inside the US and overseas, with an active duty military ID AND a red, official passport, I was routinely selected for the additional screening. Seems that someone on US Government travel orders, with a military ID, and an official Government passport would not be the prime source of security concerns....

[Tom Odom]

I also wonder what secret forumla is used to deterimne who gets additional screening and who does not. When I was flying both inside the US and overseas, with an active duty military ID AND a red, official passport, I was routinely selected for the additional screening. Seems that someone on US Government travel orders, with a military ID, and an official Government passport would not be the prime source of security concerns....

Amen and it still happens to me with a retired military ID, a current CAC, and red passport

I actually had to explain why I had a red passport to the TSA person....

then my metal knee sets off the alarm and it really gets sillly

[Stan]

Of No Practical Significance from Threats Watch

A brief commentary with some salient points... dead to the point

Eight years on, new legislation, new organizations, reconfigured security apparatus, and we still lack the ability to keep the usefully delusional from trying to blow their extremities up at altitude.

[slapout9]

Of No Practical Significance from Threats Watch

A brief commentary with some salient points... dead to the point

We could start by realizing that when somebody's father tells the US Embassy that his son is starting to go Jihad on him...... we should listen.......and then maybe do something besides listen like flag his passport,Visa instead of taking the passengers blankets away from them and telling them no bathroom breaks for you during the last hour of flight......wait I got it..... lets hire some security experts with PHD's that fix it.

[pjmunson]

Whether we are talking about CT, COIN, other threats, people always talk about how we need to reorganize, retrain, etc, to deal with the new age threat. Even if any of that would ultimately be helpful, we are never going to get anywhere until our bureaucracies and their promotion mechanisms start selecting out the guys who say, "I know how to fix this. We'll just make everyone stay seated with their hands on their laps for the last hour of the flight." More importantly, the systems need to select out all of the sycophants who sit through that meeting nodding, smiling, and stroking the boss rather than saying, "You dumba**, what keeps them from blowing the plane at 1+15 out, especially when you plan on publicizing your brilliant plan immediately to show the public how safe you made them?"

Our entire security apparatus needs a healthy dose of de-arrogantization and the re-introduction of reality through frank transmission of information and criticism both up and down through the chain of command. That is not happening today.

[slapout9]

Pretty soon we will have to fly naked,with no luggage,sitting on the outside of the plane, under the eyes of an armed Predator escort.

[wm]

Whether we are talking about CT, COIN, other threats, people always talk about how we need to reorganize, retrain, etc, to deal with the new age threat. Even if any of that would ultimately be helpful, we are never going to get anywhere until our bureaucracies and their promotion mechanisms start selecting out the guys who say, "I know how to fix this. We'll just make everyone stay seated with their hands on their laps for the last hour of the flight." More importantly, the systems need to select out all of the sycophants who sit through that meeting nodding, smiling, and stroking the boss rather than saying, "You dumba**, what keeps them from blowing the plane at 1+15 out, especially when you plan on publicizing your brilliant plan immediately to show the public how safe you made them?"

Our entire security apparatus needs a healthy dose of de-arrogantization and the re-introduction of reality through frank transmission of information and criticism both up and down through the chain of command. That is not happening today.

The following quotation from a Mel Brooks' character (Governor William J. Le Petomane) seems very apropos here:

Holy underwear! Sheriff murdered! Innocent women and children blown to bits! We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!

BTW, Le Petomane is an interesting choice of character name. Go here to read the complete story of this extract:

Joseph Pujol, better known as Le Petomane (which we may loosely translate as "the fartiste") . . . Le Petomane performed his unique act from 1887 to 1914, and became one of his country's best-known vaudevillians. At one point he was earning 20,000 francs a week, compared to 8,000 for his contemporary Sarah Bernhardt.