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Explosives Left at Sydney Airport in Police Dog Training Drill

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Explosives Left at Sydney Airport in Police Dog Training Drill

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Old Sep 11, 2014, 11:42 am
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Explosives Left at Sydney Airport in Police Dog Training Drill

After conducting an on-site sniffer dog training exercise at Sydney Airport, Australian federal police accidentally left behind a suitcase with 230-grams (8-ounces) of plastic explosives.

Three weeks later, a woman whose own suitcase was damaged during her travels was given the suitcase containing the explosives by airport staff. After arriving at home, she discovered the explosives, and took the suitcase to a local police station.

The Australian federal police has apologized for the incident and has stated that the explosives weren't live and didn't pose any danger.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...ing-drill.html
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Old Sep 11, 2014, 12:00 pm
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The Australian federal police has apologized for the incident and has stated that the explosives weren't live and didn't pose any danger.
Alfred Nobel's brother may have thought much the same, until it blew up in his face. And his family was credited for being the founding family of dynamite.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Oskar_Nobel

Last edited by GUWonder; Sep 12, 2014 at 8:41 am
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Old Sep 12, 2014, 7:42 am
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How did airport staff decide to give that particular suitcase as replacement for damaged suitcase?
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Old Sep 12, 2014, 9:06 am
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"The explosives weren't live?" What does that mean? Were they real explosives or just modeling clay? Or perhaps a special mix of modeling clay with just a tiny smidge of real explosives that would attract sniffers but not go boom?

Or do they simply mean that the explosives didn't have a detonator attached and thus was extremely unlikely to go boom, unless intentionally acted upon by someone who knows how to detonate such materials?
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Old Sep 12, 2014, 9:11 pm
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Originally Posted by WillCAD
"The explosives weren't live?" What does that mean? Were they real explosives or just modeling clay? Or perhaps a special mix of modeling clay with just a tiny smidge of real explosives that would attract sniffers but not go boom?

Or do they simply mean that the explosives didn't have a detonator attached and thus was extremely unlikely to go boom, unless intentionally acted upon by someone who knows how to detonate such materials?
I'm sure that's what they meant--no cap.

It's not just knowing how to detonate them, it's having the cap to do it with.
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Old Sep 16, 2014, 4:01 pm
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Something like that happened years ago to a NWA flight out of SEA. The Port police borrowed an off-duty DC-10 to train their bomb-sniffing dogs, and neglected to police all the sticks of dynamite they're planted in various places. When the plane took off on a flight to Tokyo and was climbing out, the stick left behind rolled out from under a seat and continued down the aisle before encountering a flight attendant's foot. The flight came back, circled for an hour or two while it dumped fuel (another snafu, as the fuel didn't vaporize as normal and nuked several gardens in West Seattle), then landed. The Port waived the landing fee, at least.
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Old Sep 17, 2014, 8:05 am
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If it was the TSA/DHS which did this, the dog would have gotten promoted and the dog's handler would be sent for re-training
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Old Sep 17, 2014, 10:17 am
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Originally Posted by goalie
If it was the TSA/DHS which did this, the dog would have gotten promoted and the dog's handler would be sent for re-training
Meanwhile, on FT, there would be a huge outcry and demand for the dog to be euthanized and the handler fired and brought up on charges. Followed inevitably by calls for the dog to be retrained as a service dog and gifted to some charitable organization, and for the TSA handler to be euthanized.
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