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"Liquid Explosives"
OK, I've read some of the articles and such about liquid explosives from the BBC. They all allude to some vague, nebulous ingredients that might be able to be combined to make a liquid explosive, or combining a liquid and a solid.
They read like bullshit, as in, as credible as "red mercury" being a nuclear material.
Yes, there are liquids that can be combined to make explosives. In order to get explosives out of these, they have to be highly concentrated. Some are considered "volatile". This means they stink.
Take acetone, a well known ingredient in nail polish remover. The concentration is low, the smell is high. If someone decided to "do their nails" on an airplane flight, they'd get lynched - that shit is vicious in an enclosed environment.
Or various acidic drain cleaners: hard to handle and package without burning yourself, or sufficiently low strength to not do anything more than fizzle. These stink too.
Hydrogen peroxide: the stuff you can buy in the drugstore is low concentration. It would have to be concentrated (not a simple process), then repacked in the original bottle. It smells when you open it, too. Hair bleach developer has a slightly higher concentration, but again has the smell problem.
Gasoline/Fuel oil: first, it smells; second, its already prohibited in aircraft cabins.
So, basically, it would take a lot of effort, coordination, and ingenuity by the terrorists, plus gross apathy on the part of their fellow passengers. Ain't gonna happen. Not when passengers that look like they *might* be doing something funky get tackled promptly by fellow travellers.
They read like bullshit, as in, as credible as "red mercury" being a nuclear material.
Yes, there are liquids that can be combined to make explosives. In order to get explosives out of these, they have to be highly concentrated. Some are considered "volatile". This means they stink.
Take acetone, a well known ingredient in nail polish remover. The concentration is low, the smell is high. If someone decided to "do their nails" on an airplane flight, they'd get lynched - that shit is vicious in an enclosed environment.
Or various acidic drain cleaners: hard to handle and package without burning yourself, or sufficiently low strength to not do anything more than fizzle. These stink too.
Hydrogen peroxide: the stuff you can buy in the drugstore is low concentration. It would have to be concentrated (not a simple process), then repacked in the original bottle. It smells when you open it, too. Hair bleach developer has a slightly higher concentration, but again has the smell problem.
Gasoline/Fuel oil: first, it smells; second, its already prohibited in aircraft cabins.
So, basically, it would take a lot of effort, coordination, and ingenuity by the terrorists, plus gross apathy on the part of their fellow passengers. Ain't gonna happen. Not when passengers that look like they *might* be doing something funky get tackled promptly by fellow travellers.
no subject
Mix these three ingrediants in the right ratio and you have an explosive.
Add a 9v battery, two lengths of wire and penlight bulb with the glass carefully broken, and you have the ignition system.
take yourself, and the little packets with you to the toilet once you're airborne. Mix, shake in a plastic baggie, add detonator circuit. Instant bomb.
Not much boom to it, but slap it against a window and it'll do the job.
Or if you want to use a liquid, vodka and sodium nitrate will do it. You don't even have to carry the alcohol with you, just buy it off the drinks trolly. And hey, it comes with a handy bomb casing, ie the bottle.
no subject
The question then comes, since minor amounts of explosives are do-able with common household chemicals, why would the plotters do the elaborate sports' drink can bit? That's what smells the most false to me.
no subject
Sure, someone with a bit of knowledge can look up the chemicals needed to make traditional explosives on the net, or even find some improvised types in things like the anarchists cookbook... but it takes a kinda warped genius to go simple.
Incidently, the IED in question, even down to the use of a gatorade bottle, is a direct copy out of the anarchists handbook. Except back when it was first written, gatorade was sold in glass bottles. They make for a much more powerful bomb. The whole plane plot is direct copy of one tried in 1995 apparently, which would be consitant with the design.
Speaking from experiance, a nitrate/alcohol bomb in a 12oz miniture bottle with the cap screwed on tightly... will blow a tennis-ball sized hole in 1/16" sheet aluminium. That's enough to put hole in a plane, do it in the right place and the hull will just rip apart like paper under aerodynamic stress. A 24oz bomb, is overkill.
no subject
Before the stroke, I had a project to take the Anarchists Cookbook, and pick apart all of the unsafe practices in it. I never got a good start on it.