Originally Posted by
williamsg4713
I may be veering badly off-topic with this question, but would it be possible to blow up a plane with swallowed explosives? One problem, I think, would be that stomach acid would immediately start working on the containers; but while you could not obtain a precise time for the explosion, if the flight were a long one and the container material and thickness were properly chosen you could be fairly sure that the explosive would be released during the flight. But are there substances that would become explosive in the presence of stomach acids? And would it be possible to swallow a container large enough to contain a sufficient quantity? or, if numerous smaller containers were swallowed, would the content of each be released after a sufficiently uniform time so as to permit the critical mass of explosive material to be reached to permit a detonation adequate to the purpose?
There are products -- medical or even foodstuff -- that can expedite the emptying of digestive tract-concealed contraband from the mouth or the rectum. But they wouldn't have to go even that far. Vaginal or anal suppository concealing explosives can be removed with greater ease and are either not going to be detected by strip search machines and/or are going to result in more and bigger and uglier haystacks in which to loose a needle as the "tampon paradox" would come into play.
Back to contraband that goes into the mouth and/or stomach and acid concerns, those are not necessarily going to spare us from such a means of terrorist attack because there is material that can be used and will hold up well enough against stomach acids and other bodily actions upon consumed items.
Enough contraband can be smuggled on board this way to down a plane. It becomes far less likely to succeed when using explosives-detection means rather than wasting resources on strip searches that don't detect explosives.
Terrorism is an awful nuisance, and more people will have to learn to live with that reality just like they've managed to live with road accidents. The best bomb-makers can already and will usually be able to circumvent whatever security measures are in place or will be put in place using currently available technology. That just reinforces that terrorism is an awful nuisance and people will have to live with it because there is no such thing as 100% security for the living.