Wake up Europe! It's real

dude, you can bring a lighter on an American airplane. what stopping someone from filling a damn sock with black powder and using that to blow up a damn airplane window?
 
parky76 said:
dude, you can bring a lighter on an American airplane. what stopping someone from filling a damn sock with black powder and using that to blow up a damn airplane window?
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1. Nitrates. There are detectors. Black powder is about a third nitrate.

2. Sock. Black powder is not a high explosive and so needs a fairly strong container to make a reasonable explosion. In a sock it would just burn you and everybody around you. Would get put out by fire extinguishers, and wouldn't be very effective terrorism.
 
Maybe the first tip-off that this guy was a terrorist was that he WANTED to go to Detroit...

Michael
 
It appears he started the trip in Nigeria, so perhaps Lagos Security needs some examining. He was transisting via Amsterdam-Schipol.

I've been through Schipol, they do check your tickets and passports at the gate and run you/your hand baggage through a scanner at the boarding gates, so this character couldn't have gotten too much by them. All told it's better security than most US airports.

We shall see.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Why does Europe hate America?
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the great majority of Europeans I have met in my many travels, actually have respected Americans and America.

but then there was this one Dutch girl in Montreal, who hated Americans...but ended up screwing the first horny soul she could find.

:)
 
parky76 said:
dude, you can bring a lighter on an American airplane. what stopping someone from filling a damn sock with black powder and using that to blow up a damn airplane window?
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No you can't take a lighter on an American plane.

You can take one book of matches. Any lighters will be confisgated at security if it is found.

That's a pretty big if, though. My girlfriend seems to always have on in her purse that is always missed. And if people see you with it passed security, no one will say anything despite the fact that you aren't supposed to have it.

Black powder isn't considered an explosive. It works in gun barrels because it burns relatively quickly and evenly. If it was explosive like, say, TNT, it would rupture the barrel. You can get an explosion using black powder by putting in a sealed container, but you can do the same with mentos and coke (not to say that mentos and coke would be as dangerous as a BP explosion...).
 
Rogue1stclass said:
No you can't take a lighter on an American plane.

You can take one book of matches. Any lighters will be confisgated at security if it is found.

That's a pretty big if, though. My girlfriend seems to always have on in her purse that is always missed. And if people see you with it passed security, no one will say anything despite the fact that you aren't supposed to have it.
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Untrue. TSA regs changed Aug 4, 2007. Regular lighters are allowed in carry on luggage. Butane torch type lighters are still banned however.
 
rwguinn said:
How did a guy get ANY kind of incendiaries past security? Does Europe give a damn? What's up? Or has the war on terrorism become a US only problem?
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Yes, it has. Since the Madrid bombing, and 7/7, Europeans have decided that the terrorists who keep blowing them up don't exist.

Of course, to dissimulate this, Europeans have put on a big show of heightening airport security. But in their heart of hearts, obviously what they meant was that terrorists could kill whomsoever they pleased.

Anyone who tries to exculpate Europeans for the evil wicked things that anti-European terrorists have done is losing sight of the one ultimate moral principle, that you must always blame the victim. Unless, of course, we're talking about 9/11, which was in no way the fault of President Bush.

But, that one singular exception aside, we have to admit that every time that terrorists suceede fail, it's because the European nations just aren't trying to avert acts of terrorism against them. The fact is that just because they live a few thousand miles to the east of the USA, their whole ideology can be summed up as: "Please kill us in the name of Allah!"

And then people ask why I laugh at right-wing Americans. It can't possibly be because they're crazy in the head, there must be some other reason.
 
Ausmerican said:
Untrue. TSA regs changed Aug 4, 2007. Regular lighters are allowed in carry on luggage. Butane torch type lighters are still banned however.
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They certainly took ours last January. Well, the one they found.

Though, I do believe you. Is it bad that I trust a random person on the Internet to know TSA regs better than a TSA officer?
 
The OP is one of the most extreme examples of extrapolated silliness I have seen. First, the perp went through Amsterdam. How do security procedures there reflect all of Europe? How does a breach of security in one airport in one city in Europe get extrapolated to Europeans not giving a damn?

How many passengers pass through all European airports annually? ONE failure might be indicative of a failure rate of, say, 0.001%. Can you, rwguinn, find another system designed and implemented by humans with such a low failure rate?

Certainly this event should result in some serious sercurity reviews, some increased training and maybe even some heads rolling. But it should not be used to extrapolate beyond all reasonable bounds.
 
1. The perp flew to Detroit via Amsterdam from Lagos, Nigeria which, I know, many Americans never heard of, let alone where it's located. Nigeria's North is Muslim, and Al Qaida progresses nicely there. 30 years ago, 16% of Nigeria was Muslim, today it's 62%. Though the majority is Sunni ("educated" in Saudi wahhabi style), the Shia segment is growing, compliments from Iran.

2. The "device" was a syringe with insulin, since he claimed to Amsterdam security that he was diabetic. The explosive powder he used was taped to his upper leg. No hand luggage X-Ray machine can detect that (of course) nor do the metal detectors one walks through. People sitting next to him didn't suspect anything when he started preparing his syringe. Security at Lagos airport is a joke: a few Naira and you're done. The more notes you wave, the faster you move to the front of the line. If the wad of bills is thick enough, you find yourself promoted to VIP: no security check at all.

3. Amsterdam security is 100x better than any US airport. How often I discovered after arriving on a flight from the US that I forgot to put my Swiss Army knife or sometimes a camping set with spoon, fork and knife in my check-in luggage instead of my hand luggage....

4. The best way to check for suspects at airports is the Israeli way. Look the passenger in the eyes, observe them how they behave, ask "strange" questions, see how they react, if necessary let them wait while their passport is taken and in plain sight have another security person check every page, and observe their behavior. It can be annoying and sometimes time-consuming, but it works very well.

:ISRAEL::NETHERLANDS::NETHERLANDSANTILLES
 
SezMe said:
The OP is one of the most extreme examples of extrapolated silliness I have seen. First, the perp went through Amsterdam. How do security procedures there reflect all of Europe? How does a breach of security in one airport in one city in Europe get extrapolated to Europeans not giving a damn?

How many passengers pass through all European airports annually? ONE failure might be indicative of a failure rate of, say, 0.001%. Can you, rwguinn, find another system designed and implemented by humans with such a low failure rate?

Certainly this event should result in some serious sercurity reviews, some increased training and maybe even some heads rolling. But it should not be used to extrapolate beyond all reasonable bounds.
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Hear hear!
 
SezMe said:
The OP is one of the most extreme examples of extrapolated silliness I have seen. First, the perp went through Amsterdam. How do security procedures there reflect all of Europe? How does a breach of security in one airport in one city in Europe get extrapolated to Europeans not giving a damn?

How many passengers pass through all European airports annually? ONE failure might be indicative of a failure rate of, say, 0.001%. Can you, rwguinn, find another system designed and implemented by humans with such a low failure rate?

Certainly this event should result in some serious sercurity reviews, some increased training and maybe even some heads rolling. But it should not be used to extrapolate beyond all reasonable bounds.
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OK, I'll agree that that was a nice post. But I still think that laughing at drooling contemptible halfwits is more fun.
 
Not sure how serious a failure it was, though.

So according to the reports, this thing did take fire. But it did not explode. So I think it remains very unclear how much potential harm there really was here.
 
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