Originally Posted by
Dovster
From what you are saying, not too much of these liquids would be needed to kill everyone on a plane even if they did not combine. Presumably, having them combine could well bring down the plane.
It is so far beyond the range of possibilities to imagine a scenario where they are put into separate, thin, bottles by people wearing protective clothing and carried on board by a suicide bomber?
What he would need to do then is simply stamp on both of them with the same foot and at the same time, letting mix and explode. Even if he managed to break only one bottle the vapor would spread throughout the plane, killing everyone on board rapidly.
Actually, no. These propellants simply burn when they come in contact -- they don't explode. When the chemicals are consumed, the fire goes out unless it's used to ignite something else. I would use a simple match for that purpose.
In the interest of brevity, I suspect I glossed over just how difficult it is to handle these chemicals. You can't manufacture these chemicals in any sort of amateur lab. So, terrorists would have to hijack tank trucks of each chemical. These tank trucks only go to two places -- Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg AFB. You would have to "hide" two tank trucks somewhere, steal enough SCAPE suits for your guys, and pump small enough quantities of each chemical into completely sealed vessels you could somehow carry on a plane. You can't take on dozens of 3oz bottles of this stuff because mixing them all together in an airliner lav would kill you. Then, as I said before, the only thing this stuff does is burn until it burns itself out.
In all seriousness, a terrorist group going through the amount of trouble it would take to safely handle these chemicals would be better served by using these propellants in a ballistic missile they could shoot at somebody.