Originally Posted by
muddy
but ... but ... all the FT chemistry experts have assured me that this is impossible ...
And without any word from the "experts" conducting said test (who just happen to be in the business of selling the government things) as to what went on, their statements about how easy it is to obtain, smuggle, and combine the liquids is questionable.
There have been viable binary explosives available for quite some time, and things that are not so sensitive as TATP or nitroglycerine and which don't require the difficulties in combining them (TATP and nitro both need lab-like conditions and a lot of time).
However, these things have, in entirity, consisted of things that are easily detected by ETD. (Most make use of nitromethane as one of the two ingredients, and there's no way ETD, if performed, misses that; any heavily nitrated compound is going to set off alarms left and right at the ETD.)
I can think of a few other ways to make a bomb, but not one that is as destructive or reliable as something like that. For example, some acid with some zinc powder will make a lot of hydrogen gas, which I suppose you could keep bottled up under pressure until you detonate it--but the energy density of hydrogen isn't going to make it an effective explosive (or one easily directed, which is what you need to make one to damage a plane's fuselage).
I'm also not sure of why there's so much fascination on liquid explosives. Solid explosives can be more easily smuggled aboard in this day and age anyway, and there's absolutely nothing being done to catch them. (Unfortunately for us, the first terrorist to come through a checkpoint with a C4 enema is going to make screening a distinctly more unpleasant experience for us all.
)
Originally Posted by
Spiff
I'm still waiting for the identity of these magic chemicals, but as I've said all along, my money is on ETD/ETP catching them (the precursors) and that the x-ray is nearly useless for explosives detection purposes.
Indeed. I've yet to hear of any plausible explosive that doesn't involve nitrated materials, which are easily caught by ETD. (TATP and other related explosives is often bandied about as being "undetectable" by ETD due to its use of peroxides vs. nitration, but it and its related peroxide-based explosives are way too sensitive and difficult to assemble aboard a plane to be effective explosives... and ETD can be configured to catch their ingredients, too.)