Richard Reid and Umar Abdulmutallab Successful

I was watching a story on the news this morning about new TSA rules regarding the searching of children and it got me thinking. The removal of our shoes and the more invasive searches were a result of the failed attempts of Reid and Abdulmutallab (The Underwear Bomber) to detonate and bring down two planes.

What if they were successful in their attempts and had bought down those two planes? Would investigators have been able to determine how it was done? What changes would there be in airport security today?

If there was such an overblown knee jerk reaction to the failed attempts I shudder to think what air travelers would be going through if they had succeeded!
 
I was watching a story on the news this morning about new TSA rules regarding the searching of children and it got me thinking. The removal of our shoes and the more invasive searches were a result of the failed attempts of Reid and Abdulmutallab (The Underwear Bomber) to detonate and bring down two planes.

What if they were successful in their attempts and had bought down those two planes? Would investigators have been able to determine how it was done? What changes would there be in airport security today?

If there was such an overblown knee jerk reaction to the failed attempts I shudder to think what air travelers would be going through if they had succeeded!

He'd need a bloody big pair of shoes or a really impressive bulge in the pants!!!

despite the frenetic doomsayers in the MSM, a plane is a very difficult thing to take out with a small amount of explosive from inside the cabin. The planes brought down in the 80's had huge bombs in the hold (and no allowance for hold explosive decompression)

Decompression is an anoyance, not something that crashes planes...planes have had small to big holes blown in the cabin by lightning for years, none of them have crashed.

While there are a few places a few pounds of explosive could do serious damage, they arent really accessable from the cabin space.
 
He'd need a bloody big pair of shoes or a really impressive bulge in the pants!!!

despite the frenetic doomsayers in the MSM, a plane is a very difficult thing to take out with a small amount of explosive from inside the cabin. The planes brought down in the 80's had huge bombs in the hold (and no allowance for hold explosive decompression)

Decompression is an anoyance, not something that crashes planes...planes have had small to big holes blown in the cabin by lightning for years, none of them have crashed.

While there are a few places a few pounds of explosive could do serious damage, they arent really accessable from the cabin space.

I agree with your assessment of the explosive capabilities, but suppose they were still successfull in detonating themselves, despite the fact that the planes probably would not have crashed. What is the fallout?
 
I agree with your assessment of the explosive capabilities, but suppose they were still successfull in detonating themselves, despite the fact that the planes probably would not have crashed. What is the fallout?

Direct or political?

In the sense of direct effect, to do serious damage, Richard Reid would have to press the shoe against the wall before exploding it. The resulting decompression would possibly kill or injure several people sitting nearby, as well as people with weak hearts across the plane, and force an emergency landing. It is possible that the plane still crashes if the pilot botches the landing with less than fully responsive plane.

Abdulmutallab would need to do the same... but it is a bit difficult to hump a concave wall close enough. :p Otherwise, he would die and pieces of his junk strewn around his neighbours would see them hospitalized after landing, at least to determine whether they have caught something nasty.

Long term political fallout would be the same as OTL, IMO.
 
Direct or political?

In the sense of direct effect, to do serious damage, Richard Reid would have to press the shoe against the wall before exploding it. The resulting decompression would possibly kill or injure several people sitting nearby, as well as people with weak hearts across the plane, and force an emergency landing. It is possible that the plane still crashes if the pilot botches the landing with less than fully responsive plane.

Abdulmutallab would need to do the same... but it is a bit difficult to hump a concave wall close enough. :p Otherwise, he would die and pieces of his junk strewn around his neighbours would see them hospitalized after landing, at least to determine whether they have caught something nasty.

Long term political fallout would be the same as OTL, IMO.

The political fallout has the potential to be worse. Despite the fact that it is highly unlikely that the planes crashed, there will be some deaths of passengers. Americans getting killed by terrorists, on a commercial airliner, will have serious consequences!
 
He'd need a bloody big pair of shoes or a really impressive bulge in the pants!!!

despite the frenetic doomsayers in the MSM, a plane is a very difficult thing to take out with a small amount of explosive from inside the cabin. The planes brought down in the 80's had huge bombs in the hold (and no allowance for hold explosive decompression)

Decompression is an anoyance, not something that crashes planes...planes have had small to big holes blown in the cabin by lightning for years, none of them have crashed.

While there are a few places a few pounds of explosive could do serious damage, they arent really accessable from the cabin space.

What if one of them (more likely Reid) had managed to get the bomb into the cockpit? Would that have taken down the plane?
 
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