Could the UndieBomber Have Destroyed the Plane?
There are two new minor details in the UndieBomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s, case. He was scheduled for a pre-trial hearing tomorrow, but his lawyer, Anthony Chambers, just submitted a waiver of Abdulmutallab’s presence at the hearing, and the judge rescheduled the hearing for two weeks later. This is significant only insofar as it’ll prevent him from firing Chambers, as he fired his public defenders in September.
In another filing submitted yesterday, Chambers asks for the file the public defender kept during the time they represented Abdulmutallab. Here’s the interesting bit about that request:
That counsel herein further believes that the file contains expert information which disputes the governments allegations and furthermore, that the alleged attempt to “destroy an aircraft” was impossible!
Now, I’ve seen reports to that effect on the Toobz. For example, a terrorism and explosives expert did a rough reenactment of the UndieBombing attempt, and found it would not have destroyed the plane.
Dr John Wyatt, an international terrorism and explosives adviser to the UN, replicated the conditions on board the Detroit flight on a decommissioned Boeing 747 at an aircraft graveyard in Gloucestershire, England .
Wyatt used the same amount of the explosive pentaerythritol that the bomber carried, about 80 grams, which packs about the punch of a hand grenade. They put it on the same seat and lit off a controlled explosion, which sent a shock wave through the aluminum exterior.
The metal was permanently bowed out, and a handful of rivets were punched out, but no gaping holes appeared. The pressurized air inside the cabin would have slowly leaked out .
Wyatt and his cohorts say that wouldn’t have been life-threatening, and it wouldn’t have brought down the plane. However, the blast would probably have killed the bomber and the person next to him
But this suggests some expert actually told the Public Defender’s office that the UndieBomber was never able to destroy the plane he was on.
The entire flying public is now subject to gate grope because of Abdulmutallab. Is it possible that, all this time, he was never a competent threat to the plane he was on?
Then again, given that the FBI now seems to be routinely entrapping people into trying to set off inert bombs the FBI made, I’m not sure it’ll make a difference in court.
Bin Laden’s effect on the USofA to date must exceed his wildest dreams, due to the reaction of our citizens, and more specifically our leaders(?). The shoe and skivvy bombers main effect is, besides more public paranoia, the publics acceptance of more and more security in the vain hope of preventing all terrorist attacks. Why blow up a plane when being captured in the attempt has the same result on our society.
If they ever tried to use Wyatt’s experiment as evidence, it would be shredded. There are sooooo many problems with his experiment, starting with the fact that he used the wrong type of plane.
Agree–tho I was just pointing out that it had been discussed on the Toobz. Now if Wyatt WERE Chambers’ expert, he’d be in trouble.
Then again, another reaosn this isn’t gonna help is the experience of Ricahrd Reid, who was just as incompetent as UndieBomber.
While not an engineer, I don’t think the experiment was that far off.
The interior volumes are not that different and both are large enough that one grenade-like device might result in fuselage deformation in an un-pressurized aircraft. Pressurized, the fuselage is quite strong, especially in an over-pressure situation, with pressure relief valves, if operating, further reducing the impact on the structure.
I cannot remember exactly but I think they have to demonstrate the ability for the pressure vessel to tolerate 150% overpressure, well beyond the added pressure a grenade-like device could provide. The instantaneous overpressure shock wave would complicate the situation.
An interesting, to me, difference is that on older fuselages, especially those when smoking was allowed, have many of their normal leaks filled with cigarette tar (quite literally) and might not contain an overpressure as well as a newer fuselage. Just sayin’
Maybe this is a bmaz question, but what role does competence play in setting the level of a crime? For example, if I start bopping someone on the head with a NERF bat – with the intent of killing them, but clearly not able to do so using this method – can I still be charged with attempted murder?
Heh, it depends; effectively, probably not. But you would never be charged with anything more than assault. A lot of factors could alter in different directions, but generally there has to be some reasonable ability to carry out the intent.
I don’t believe the plan was to blow up the plane; it would not have had the desired effect on our “security theater” environment. We wouldn’t have had to take off our shoes had Reid’s plane taken down the evidence; nor would we be subject to grope/porno scans now had the Undiebomber’s plane not survived to tell the tale. The next attack will most probably be a (deliberately) failed suppository bomb, with the desired effect being universal cavity searches. Fun times ahead.
I believe the techical aspects of this case are less important than the eyewitness report that the Undiebomber was escorted past security by a “Well Dressed Man”. These eyewitnesses made it to NPR but no investigation has been reported since then.
jtminia and bmaz
in the u. s. of a. ?
right now?
of course you could be charged, jtminia.
all that is required is
a federal prosecutor who has been ordered to develop
some semi-plausible violation of federal law –
and there are volumes of federal laws.
these days, thanks to the neglect of justice by presidents bush and obama in favor of using the (federal) law for political advantage,
you WOULD be charged, jtm, if your nerf assault negatively affected a political outcome for the prez.
orionATL
FDL / Emptywheel
The Interwebs
Dear Sir,
My client, JTMinIA, has requested that I log on using his account and ask that you help raise his bail (as well as my fee).
Anon, Esq.
as for wyatt’s test being done with the “wrong kind of plane”,
that still highlights the question
“just how g-damned much toothpaste, shaving lotion, hydrogen peroxide, nail polish, etc WOULD it take to “bring down” a large modern jet?”
recall, jets have landed safely with missing exit doors, with holes in the fuselage, with decompression in the cabin, without one of two engines, etc.
can we have a detailed explanation from our dhs/tsa about just how much of a serious risk our lotions and potions really present?
my view of airplane security in america is that it is primarily for the political protection of the president, his party, and the particular bureaucracy involved in the “security” effort,
not for the safety of the passengers.
I have been trying for months to get a statistical analysis from the TSA that substantiates the claims of Pistole and Napolitano that any of their procedures “keep us safe”. No luck. I’ll keep trying though… We all need a hobby ; )
I think the GAO has complained that the TSA hasn’t done a cost/benefit analysis. I suspect the reason they haven’t is that any statistical analysis would show there is no statistically significant risk reduction provided by several of their procedures.
So instead, they peddle snake oil and a discouraging number of people believe it provides a real cure.
phred,
yours are precisely the kind of questions/demands that need to be persistently laid on the tsa and the dhs.
airlines, after all, do risk- benefit analysis all the time,
analyses some of which are designed to show why they should not spend money on a safety measure,
i.e., the cost of doing x for all planes, mechanics, passengers would “outweigh” any savings of injury or death.
i recall a controversy some years back about the cost/benefit of making airlines ” crash and burn” free – maybe the mother of all c-b’s designed for airline cost savings rather than passenger benefit.
tsa, of course, has a virtually unlimited budget,
including an apparently large “gadget budget”, viz its pornoscan machines.
so it seems to me tsa’s c-b analyses should be focused on safety gained vs passenger inconvenience costs,
safety gained vs tsa labor costs,
and safety gained vs passenger privacy costs.
what we know at the moment is that a half-dozen or fewer individuals have tried to blow up an american aitliner one way or another,
have avoided tsa security in so doing (think “fbi/ barn door” here),
but have not succeeded.
i hope to hell you persist in your effort; one can bet c-b studies have been done.
Thanks, I absolutely will keep pursuing this information.
I am not certain that the TSA has done a statistical analysis, because anyone qualified to do so can probably tell them with fairly little effort that there is no safety gained. You can’t even get to the cost trade-off, because there is no statistically significant reduction in risk. Chertoff/Pistole wanted those machines, so they may have chosen to not perform any analysis that would jeopardize their plan.
Just so I’m clear, I think some of the screening is useful and appropriate. ID checks, metal detectors and x-rayed carry-ons probably provide some real benefit. However, you start to get into the realm of diminishng returns with each additional step. What is the reduction in risk provided by taking off your shoes? What is the further reduction provided by a pat-down, etc.
Plus, aricraft terrorism is extremely rare and each case has been different, so if the risk you are trying to reduce is already on the order of 1 in a billion or less, then how can you reduce that further? And is it significant if you do?
What is the criteria the TSA uses to determine a significant reduction in risk from an insignificant reduction in risk? What methods have they considered and rejected because they provide an insignificant improvement in security? Only when we have answers to these kinds of questions, can the public assess whether the naked scans/molesting-pat-downs are a “reasonable” search within the context of air travel.
We’ll see if TSA produces any evidence that they have ever considered these questions…
dear esquire,
raise his bail??
i thought you were defending jtm from a lawless federal prosecutor,
not trying to keep him in jail.
how high do you want his bail to be raised?
Undie was escorted aboard Flight 253 by a “handler”. Perhaps Handler is another Al Qaeda double agent used by the Intelligence community for false flag ops. The device was detonated which started a fire. Crew and passengers extinguished the fire. I am guessing any fire on an airliner is potentially catastrophic. Undie identified the Saudi Bombmaker, who continues to roam free building more bombs for the Intelligence community. Later, it was revealed that Undie had been under intelligence community surveillance.
The Senate SSCI committe made a report. But the report contained no actual details other than unconnected dots. But the dots were connected. US officials approved Undie’s boarding and security officials claimed to have searched him. This coverup is laughable except two days aftter the attack, Skeletor Chertoff was using this to get the cancer causing scanners for airports, schools, grocery stores, everywhere.
Interviews with two of the witnesses:
– This guy is a lawyer who lives outside Detroit and says he and his wife witnessed a Southeast Asian man help Abdullmutallab board without presenting a passport: http://original.antiwar.com/scott/2010/01/05/haskell-interview/
He is really really really pissed at the Customs guy who was refuting his story:
There’s more, of course. A bomb-sniffing dog picking out that man’s luggage for one.
– And this guy on Huffington Post who wrote two entries about his experience. The first post seems to confirm something the first passenger said, about the bomb-sniffing dog; the second post directly refutes that passenger’s assertion that a Sudanese passenger could get helped onto the plane by Amsterdam airport management without a proper passport.
Both of them seem to be fighting mad to share and stand behind their stories — the first guy calling the customs guy out of his cubicle and for Amsterdam Airport to release the surveillance video of the preflight boarding incident; the second guy posting all his contact information at Huffington Post.