So. First of all. I agree 100% with present procedures banning all liquids, gels etc. in carry-on bags. I understand bad guys can bring on seemingly innocuous stuff in shampoo/drink/toothpaste containers and reconstitute TATP and other dangerous compounds on board.

I want to relay what happened yesterday at a NYC airport.

I was at my new job and was given a bag of "welcome" goodies which appeared to consist of a beach towel and some paperwork. Unbeknownst to me, an 8oz bottle of suntan lotion was in the bag.

Since my intention was to carry on all bags, I shoved the "welcome gift" in my carryon 21" rollaboard. Shame on me for not looking in the bag before doing so. I had no other toiletry products in my bags.

Went through security and X-ray. They stopped me and said, "Sir, we need to check your bag" - I said, "go right ahead." Screener emptied entire contents of my rollaboard into tubs. Re-X-rayed everything. Patted down backside of rollaboard and all its pockets/compartments. Found nothing. I didn't know about the lotion bottle. They then RE-Xrayed everything a third time and hand checked everything. At no time did they actually dump the contents of the company welcome gift bag nor my dirty washing bag from hotel. Patted everything over and over. Called supe' over. Patted things again. Re X-rayed stuff a fourth time. Finally, they gave up, re packed my bag and apologized(!) for the lengthy screening. I told the screener, "Thanks for doing what you have to do" and was on my way.

Upon reaching my house, dumped the gift bag and found the suntan lotion bottle I'd unknowingly carried on.

Note to TSA: If you suspect or see possible liquid bottles on X-Ray, and re-screen luggage, you need to actually dump every bag, bundle, etc. I'm ashamed this happened and sorry for my unwitting role in the "breech".

I don't know why you are sorry for what happened--clearly you had no ill intentions.

I am sorry that the TSA did not find the liquid they suspected was there and just gave up. At the same time I am far from surprised.

The American citizen quoted above is ashamed to have brought suntan lotion into the cabin of an airplane. We need a Trusted Traveler program that will trust you to bring suntan lotion and not nitroglycerin in your carry-on.

Thanks for the story illustrating the holes in security.


I'll have to disagree with you there. The procedures for making relatively simple but powerful explosives from constituent parts--nitroglycerine and TATP are often cited--involve very strong chemicals that would be difficult to pass off as shampoo, beverages, etc., and the procedures are difficult enough that they're not easily done on a plane.

There are others that can be safely combined onboard--stuff like FIXOR, for instance--but which should be harder to obtain. Not impossible, of course; we and many other countries rely on restricting access to these commercially and track their purchases and investigate unseemly buys and inquiries. However, as far as I've been able to tell, pretty much all of them are also going to alarm ETD if swabbed--so rather than banning, why not say, "Sure, you can bring liquids onboard, but they'll have to be ETD swabbed, which could make you have to wait longer in line."

And, having known about liquid explosives for more than a decade, why is the only action the TSA can take a total ban that shows absolutely no forethought? It's because they reacted to the news of the British arrests, rather than actually having done anything to develop a strategy to deal with them in the years they've had to look at the problem.

No, the water ban is but window-dressing security for the safety blanket types.

No. My post was to point out that screening procedures for baggage and forbidden articles aren't 100% effective.

We need a REAL Trusted Traveler program so that psychos don't board airplanes, while the (vast majority) trustworthy travellers board without excess hassle.

It's amazing that there haven't been dozens of midair explosions during the past few days, in light of your observation that "current proedures do not detect liquids in carry-on"!! How can that be??

I'll let the others in this thread refute your absurd statements with proper arguments -- the "please, government, invade my belongings, I want to prove my worthiness to you!" attitude that pervaded your message made me so ill and ashamed to be an American that I can't do it myself right now.

Settle. Point is, undetected liquid containers are known to be a hazard, and current procedures aren't detecting all of them. I'll avoid the temptation to return your personal insult with another.

I can't imagine any reasonable security procedures that can detect all (insert hazard here).

My OP was intended to go beyond that - that even 5X screening of a bag, if done ineffectively, doesn't pick up LARGE and not very well hidden "forbidden items"

Sorry, but I don't concur. Acetone and hydrogen peroxide are both easily brought on board ( absent liquids ban) and can be used to make TATP with a little acid catalyst. The procedure is "mix and chill". Given a transatlantic flight, it could be done on board - or done airside at airport, and bottles of finished product smuggled on board.

Folks, these guys are willing to try anything to harm commercial aviation. Not bringing shampoo to your meeting is NOT the end of the world. Getting your plane blown up by a carry on Molotov cocktail IS.

There's a myriad of other threats... SAMs, freight, incompetent screening, etc. Most posters here at TS/S are against 'security' charades meant to appease the general (nonflying) public, such as the shoe carnival. The DHS itself has posted a report that said shoe carnival does not scan for explosives! All we ask for here is a bit of sanity in this. We want well thought of security measures that have one aim in mind: sensible risk mitigation that balances convenience, cost, and risk.

Exactly -- so why not concentrate on *human*intelligence*? Airplanes will never be 100% safe -- even if we ban passengers completely! All were doing now is responding to threats and attacks after the fact, one by one. Why not spend some of the billions we are wasting looking for water & pointy things on different techniques?

All of you are utterly wrong about those procedures being designed to appease anybody. They MIGHT be poorly thought out, but none are IMSNHO "charades." Please argue all day long about how they're ineffective (if you think so).

Just one example is the new requirement that all shoes must be x-ray screened. The DHS's own April 2005 report, "Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security � Phase I," says that x-raying shoes does not discover explosives. In fact, this procedure ensures that shoes that would otherwise be suspect will not receive explosives testing (the swab test).

In the concentrations necessary to make effective TATP? The acetone fumes are going to be noticable, although not necessarily tied to making explosives (I'll grant you that given the idiocy some people practice of doing their nails in-flight). But the peroxide is going to be pretty corrosive and sensitive at that concentration and would not conceal well; I'd be surprised if it wasn't picked up upon at some point. The stuff is also much more sensitive than nitroglycerine, so it's not exactly just "mix and chill" on the plane--if the guys mess up, they probably don't get enough made to do much damage, but they do blow their hands off and alert the crew.

And didn't DHS confirm that TATP was detectable by current ETD?

And this still doesn't address why NOW for the ban, and why not previously. The current ban clearly had about five minutes of thought put into it, and that just a brainstorming session (absent brains, mind you) to come up with a list of liquids people might normally carry onboard.