People in a position to know, seem pretty convinced that this threat was real, even privately. Perhaps we'll get some more information when it goes to trial.

Which one? The 2006 UK one?

My understanding is that folks in the know seem pretty convinced that the threat, while real (as in they might have been thinking of trying this), was not all that threatening (as in it would be hard to bring down a plane with it).

And don't forget Wilson, too!

Yes, the 2006 one.

Do you have a link to anything public?

Chatham House Rule

If this was provable, it would have been published already. It is not rocket science. Anything that a dozen Islamic British citizens know is not novel nor secret.

Idiots can, and do, make liquid (or solid) explosives, they just can't manufacture them on board.

Well, Ramzi Yousef was pretty good at making bombs that could be put inside contact lens solution bottles without being detected by x-ray, yet were stable enough to travel around with. But it was still complicated enough that you can't just type it into Google, click "I'm feeling lucky" and become an expert in making it in ten minutes. Explosives training has long been a specialtiy of al Qaeda training camps.

If it is a real threat, I'm not sure why you'd expect the government to publish a reliable, hard to detect method of blowing up airplanes.

Like I said, we'll see if anything comes out of the trial.

Well that was simple nitroglycerine, was it not? Detectable with a puffer machine that the TSA has failed to deploy (job security?). It wasn't built on-board.

You have to really want or need to believe in order to accept the governments position on this. There is no reliable hard-to-detect method of blowing up airplanes. Well, perhaps all that unscreened cargo. :D

The government has been shown to be malfeasant on so many levels I'm having trouble figuring out why you are choosing this one particularly unbelievable point on which to support them.

It will never come to trial.

Thats easy. Its because we did not shoot down the Korean airliner.

My friend, you must stop making sense and pointing out obvious holes in security. It makes us look bad. ;)

Hey, who are you calling malfeasant? :)

Most of us front-liners are pushing for intelligent, rational change. We believe in what we're doing and are trying to do the best we can within the framework we're allowed to work in. Some even step outside that box, although they're gambling with disciplinary action by doing so. But you can only abide by nonsensical rules for so long.....

At the end of the day changes need to be made. Some of the ideas here on FT are excellent. Some are not. Sometimes the signal to noise ration is......um.....moderate. ;) But, at the end of the day, there are a lot of things we in the business know that the general public does not. There are things that my bosses know that I don't. So, I ask questions and try to have an informed opinion.

Part of that informed opinion involves FT. But it's only a part. There's other stuff out there that none of us know. And that's just the reality of the situation.

Just generic governmental malfeasance. I'll bet you, personally, are pretty d@mn effective in your job. You've even changed my mind a couple of times. ;)

So, let's concentrate on the binary liquid explosives. People here on FT who have the educational chops to know don't believe it is possible to build one on an aircraft.

I have a personal friend who, legally, formulates unique pyrotechnics and competes with others in national get-togethers.. He has both hands-on and theoretical knowledge of the subject. He doesn't believe it is possible, neither do his friends.

Personally, I have wide ranging interests. More of a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. I think I'm capable of understanding the concepts a bit more than the average joe.

The UK "plot" that kicked this whole thing off could never have come to fruition. Solid explosives can be carried through the WTMB in a pocket.

There is no need to single out liquids. I believe it is in place purely for propaganda purposes.

My mind can be changed, but not by people telling me that someone behind the curtain has "good reasons" (not you). :rolleyes:

Here is the list of precautions labs need to take when making the solution the UK bombers were going to try to make in the airplane: http://www.mne.umd.edu/LAMP/Sop/Piranha_SOP.htm

In other words, they would have made a big mess and probably hurt themselves. Nothing that would have harmed the airplane other than cosmetically.

That is the most likely scenario. The terrorist(s) would have killed themselves, maybe others in close proximity to them, but that's about it. They'd have an explosion on their hands before they could create enough of the stuff to cause a really big boom.