In which case why not find someone willing to sacrifice themselves for 72 virgins and cut out the highly complex task of cramming a bomb into a functioning laptop, with the difficulties of detecting when it actually gets in the air.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Laptops (etc) ban on certain air routes.
- Thread starter Howardh
- Start date
- Status
In which case why not find someone willing to sacrifice themselves for 72 virgins and cut out the highly complex task of cramming a bomb into a functioning laptop, with the difficulties of detecting when it actually gets in the air.
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
edwin_m
Veteran Member
The Daalo airline bombing is said to have involved a laptop bomb powerful enough to cause an explosive decompression, and if it had gone off at cruising altitude would probably have destroyed the aircraft.
And it would be *less* likely to be discovered in checked baggage than in carry-on.
I can think of some very rude places about the human body to hide such devices.
Magnetic resonance and/or mass spectroscopy could also be used; the former can be used both en bloc and as a scanner; the latter can be used en bloc but can sniff out explosives. Similar devices are already used (albeit with different settings) by customs staff to detect contraband.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
The Daallo Airlines bomb was handed to the passenger by ground crew after security. Which highlights where the real weak spot is in airline security. You can have all the security theatre you want, but if you have a handful of people on the inside then it all counts for jack. The MetroJet bombing proved that.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
That's precisely what the ban guards against that scanning doesn't.
If you ban laptops, anyone who has a laptop is up to no good. You see a laptop, you make an emergency landing and have the person arrested as they should not have it regardless. If you scan them, an unscrupulous member of staff can sneak one on unscanned and while you're faffing you've got a hole in the side of your plane.
That in my view is the whole point. At trustworthy airports, the same threat can be guarded against simply by upping the level of the check.
Logically you'd also ban them from the hold, but you can't kill business travel as airlines would go out of business.
Last edited:
Yet flights to the US, and to the UK from some airports (Nairobi for example), have separate security at the gate.
Simply have a separate check operated by the airline there.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
What if you don't 100% trust those staff either? What if an unscrupulous passenger could be handed something by a member of ground staff?
In some airports - including Abu Dhabi - the US have US employees of the TSA, searching bags and handling immigration. If they aren't trusted, then who is?
If you have a search before boarding that checks nobody has a laptop, and there's no ability after this search for ground staff to give someone a laptop, then why not have that search look for a bomb too.
If you don't have a search before boarding, and are relying on nobody supposed to having a laptop, so if someone gets a laptop out on board you know there's a problem, how do you cope when someone has the laptop in a handbag and takes it to the toilet?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It would raise suspicion - how many people have you seen take a large bag to the tiny toilet on an aircraft?
Quite a lot, especially if you're going to get changed out of pyjamas or something. Of course you don't need to do that either, there are some very private seats on planes (64A/K on a BA 747 for example), and after the meal is served you can be undisturbed for a couple of hours.
If all you need to do is press a button to activate the bomb (and somehow this couldn't be on a timer) you need barely any time at all.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
Yes, except you just place the laptop bomb in the hold instead, and Bob's your mum's sister's live in lover.
The only difference is that you can't target the laptop bomb on a passenger with a window seat above the wing and fuel tanks, as happened with Daallo Airlines. But if you don't have to make the laptop look normal you can pack more explosives into it to get around that.
This is all just security theatre. We need to look like we're doing something, and this is something.
The fact that it also puts the skids on the ME3- airlines that the US carriers have spent the last five years bitching about- is purely coincidental, I'm sure.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
That's an oversimplification:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p051zl9v (video)
Sounds like a US led thing.
Irrelevant on both counts...the fact remains...
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The fact remains that what? The US (alone) is considering such a ban? Yes, that's a fact. The way you presented it suggested a ban on all flights to/from/in Europe which is not true - the EU does not support it.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Yes, because that is more representative of the facts and less sensationalised.
I didn't say you did, but this fact means that a ban *within the EU* is unlikely.
The UK is part of the EU until March 2019 at the earliest. So any rules that apply to the EU will equally apply to the UK.
- Status