Airline security to increase -- attempted terrorism Amsterdam-Detroit

[wayman]

As a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit neared Detroit, a passenger attempted to set off an explosive which "appeared to be a sophisticated device made from a mixture of powder and liquid, which failed to detonate". "Passengers who were on the plane said that that they heard a loud pop, smelled smoke and then saw flames in one area of the plane." The suspect was subdued by passengers. One or more passengers (possibly including the suspect) were injured, but nobody died.

Airline Incident Was Terrorism Attempt, White House Says

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that airline passengers should expect to encounter additional security measures on all flights, adding to a travel season already made difficult by severe winter weather affecting large areas of the country.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Lots of varying reports on this one! The big thing to me is how did he get the materials for the so called "bomb" past security? And I've heard that pax were the ones that grabbed this fanatic, other reports say it was flight crew?

Sounds like Flight 51 on 9-11, glad no-one was seriously injured except hopefully this cretin! :angry:

Look for lots of "tightening up" by TSA @ the airports even though this idiot got on in a foriegn country!

 

[wayman]

Lots of varying reports on this one! The big thing to me is how did he get the materials for the so called "bomb" past security? And I've heard that pax were the ones that grabbed this fanatic, other reports say it was flight crew?Sounds like Flight 51 on 9-11, glad no-one was seriously injured except hopefully this cretin! :angry:

Look for lots of "tightening up" by TSA @ the airports even though this idiot got on in a foriegn country!

"Friday’s incident brought to mind Richard C. Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, who attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight between Paris and Miami in December 2001 by igniting explosives in his shoes. ... Since then, airline passengers have had to remove their shoes before passing through security checkpoints in American airports."

"Mr. Abdulmutallab told law enforcement authorities, the official said, that he had had explosive powder taped to his leg"

Does this suggest the new security measure airline passengers must remove their pants to anyone else?

 

[DET63]

Lots of varying reports on this one! The big thing to me is how did he get the materials for the so called "bomb" past security? And I've heard that pax were the ones that grabbed this fanatic, other reports say it was flight crew?Sounds like Flight 51 on 9-11, glad no-one was seriously injured except hopefully this cretin! :angry:

Look for lots of "tightening up" by TSA @ the airports even though this idiot got on in a foriegn country!

"Friday’s incident brought to mind Richard C. Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, who attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight between Paris and Miami in December 2001 by igniting explosives in his shoes. ... Since then, airline passengers have had to remove their shoes before passing through security checkpoints in American airports."

"Mr. Abdulmutallab told law enforcement authorities, the official said, that he had had explosive powder taped to his leg"

Does this suggest the new security measure airline passengers must remove their pants to anyone else?

Women might be able to get around some of this by wearing dresses or skirts to facilitate showing security personnel that their legs weren't being used to smuggle explosives. As for men, however . . . well, I suppose taking up cross-dressing is one option. :lol:

 

[jis]

Women might be able to get around some of this by wearing dresses or skirts to facilitate showing security personnel that their legs weren't being used to smuggle explosives. As for men, however . . . well, I suppose taking up cross-dressing is one option. :lol:

Or men could pretend to be Scottish and wear kilts :lol: For full effect they could carry along fake bagpipes too

 

[MattW]

Or we could just shutdown national airspace to commercial traffic permanently, and use Amtrak...OH WAIT A MINUTE! Amtrak doesn't have as much coverage as these airlines supposedly do...oh well, just shutdown the airspace and we'll figure out something.

 

[DET63]

Or we could just shutdown national airspace to commercial traffic permanently, and use Amtrak...OH WAIT A MINUTE! Amtrak doesn't have as much coverage as these airlines supposedly do...oh well, just shutdown the airspace and we'll figure out something.

We did that for a few days after 9/11. In fact, the airspace was shut down to all air traffic, except some military traffic.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

i say get rid of the taking your shoes off and all the other s rules and in addition to the metal detector you already pass through have a x-ray machine that you pass through. they already got one but not all places have it and its a option if you want to use it. if they had this machine this guy would never have gotten past security. but that's to simple the TSA needs to complicate it.

 

[GoldenSpike]

Sitting at PDX airport waiting for NWA flight to MSP enroute Green Bay for Packer game tomorrow.

Business as usual going through security. The only thing out of the ordinary was one female pax got wanded.

Her appearance suggested she may have set off the detector due to body piercings. At least her face didn't

look like she fell into a fishing tackle box.

Stayed in good graces with Amtrak getting here: Parked car at VAN, took Talgo to PDX 15 minues away, crossed street at Union station and boarded light rail to airport. Easy and painless method!

In better graces coming back in early January. Using points to do a CHI-LAX-VAN w/bedroom both segments.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

With each additional hassle, I wonder more and more why people put up with this. Why aren't people yelling, screaming, kicking, and beating the floor with their feet telling congress this is NOT WHAT THEY WANT!

 

[jis]

i say get rid of the taking your shoes off and all the other s rules and in addition to the metal detector you already pass through have a x-ray machine that you pass through. they already got one but not all places have it and its a option if you want to use it. if they had this machine this guy would never have gotten past security. but that's to simple the TSA needs to complicate it.

Since when does TSA do security check in Amsterdam?

I will be flying back from Delhi in a week. It should be an interesting experience. Of course in India their favorite method is to hand search everything, carryon baggage and person, once at the security barrier and then a second time at the boarding gate on the jetway. The latter is usually enforced only for nonstop flights to the US. I wonder if they will do anything extra beyond that. As has been suggested, what they will do will probably be unpredictable by design.

I don't mind the last one hour curfew on the flight, if that reduces the chance of me becoming a statistics in the terror campaign. I seldom move about too much at that time anyway. It would be the last one hour of a 15 hour flight. The last one hour of a one hour flight would seem to be much more significant though.

With each additional hassle, I wonder more and more why people put up with this. Why aren't people yelling, screaming, kicking, and beating the floor with their feet telling congress this is NOT WHAT THEY WANT!

So what would their entire plea be to the Congress? Something like "We do not want this. please remove security checks. We are willing to live with an occasional plane falling out of the sky or being hijacked and run into a building, or even into an Amtrak train?" <_<

I am just looking for some practical ideas here, not emotional reactions.

 

[Ryan]

So what would their entire plea be to the Congress?

I think that the plea should be for security that makes sense - not reactionary half measures designed to give the appearance of security rather than actually prevent bad people from attempting to do us harm.

 

[jis]

So what would their entire plea be to the Congress?

I think that the plea should be for security that makes sense - not reactionary half measures designed to give the appearance of security rather than actually prevent bad people from attempting to do us harm.

I agree with that. However, practically, what test does one apply to differentiate between those procedures that make sense and those that don't?

Honestly I have no idea how to answer that question of mine. Apparently everyone is in uncharted territory here. I don't believe the Congress has a magic wand to specify such a test either.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

So what would their entire plea be to the Congress? Something like "We do not want this. please remove security checks. We are willing to live with an occasional plane falling out of the sky or being hijacked and run into a building, or even into an Amtrak train?" <_<
I am just looking for some practical ideas here, not emotional reactions.

We don't want security theatre. We don't want security that does nothing more then to provide a demonstration that we are making it look like we have security. I have yet to find evidence that the security rules in various ways do more than hassel people.

For example, Jishnu, please give me some demonstration of exactly WHAT not allowing me to be sitting with things on my lap for the last hour of the flight is going to do?

IF someone wants to get through our security checks, they will do so. There are so many ways of doing so. XKCD posted a comic that is actually an interesting point- the average laptop battery, in its normal state with only a few invisible modifications, has the explosive capability of a small hand grenade. This is security theatre that pointlessly harasses innocent people. Investigations can be safely done without harassing innocent people.

 

[jis]

For example, Jishnu, please give me some demonstration of exactly WHAT not allowing me to be sitting with things on my lap for the last hour of the flight is going to do?

I am not sure I or anyone can. As I said the initial reaction tends to be to prevent a repeat of the specific method, and various things are done with that in mind. It seems to me that this is consistent with human nature

IF someone wants to get through our security checks, they will do so. There are so many ways of doing so. XKCD posted a comic that is actually an interesting point- the average laptop battery, in its normal state with only a few invisible modifications, has the explosive capability of a small hand grenade. This is security theatre that pointlessly harasses innocent people. Investigations can be safely done without harassing innocent people.

Since you are such an expert I suggest that you offer your services to DHS/TSA to set them straight. It is always easy to rant on and on when no responsibility lies on your shoulder

So what concrete suggestions do you have?

I am the first to admit that many of the practices don't make any sens to me. But I also do not know exactly what objective test to apply to determine which ones are effective and which ones are not specially when the consequences of failure of anything is so horrible that one is unable to do experimentation to establish relative efficacy of techniques used.

Stepping back from the emotional aspects of this there appears to be two broad philosophies on which security of this sort is based. Basing methods on establishing the intent of a person at security checkpoints, which takes vastly superior and sophisticated training of the personnel manning such posts, is apparently the one used by Israel. Most of the rest of the world appears to use one which is based on establishing identity and preceding behavior of an individual with that identity. This requires less sophisticated training of security personnel, but the downside is that individual with same identity can change ones mind and start behaving differently after spending a vacation or two in NWFP/Waziristan. So then you have to establish exactly where one has been and whether one has gone through a life changing transformation in the process, which is not easy to do. Once you determine the inherent weakness, then one starts applying odd heuristics, the exact efficacy of which is hard to establish. This is what is happening at present.

Having been through the demonstrably efficacious (so far) Israeli method, which incidentally involves extensive profiling of each individual, I am quite sure people in the US would go completely non-linear if such were used across the board in the US.

Unfortunately the problem of terrorism in the sky is not one that can be wished away in today's world, and it is inevitable that some set of actions will continue to be taken with the hope of preventing as much mayhem as possible. Some will be effective and some will be just for show perhaps. But at the end of the day what else can one do given the nature of the beast? Gratuitously calling those that are operating in a difficult situation trying to protect lives, ****s and terrorist reflects more on the the ones making such statements and their juvenile idealism perhaps, than it adds to a reasoned debate and discussion of the matter at hand.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Protection is highly overrated. In any situation, be it sex or travel. You remove so much of the pleasure in life in avoiding things that almost never happen.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

they can protect us without making it complicated. we don't have to remove our shoes and other stuff just to get on a freaking plane if they had simple yet effective screening. they have x-ray machines for baggage so get one for people. some airports have them but not all. they will show if anyone is hiding anything taped to there leg or chest or smuggling something up there you know what. but no we have to remove our shoes belt coat get frisked etc when a x-ray machine will make that obsolete unless they find something. but no that's too easy and effective.and now thanks to that recent attack attempt we may have to remove our pants.

 

[DET63]

One of the things that worried me in the wake of 9/11 was the question of whether we'd have to make a choice between freedom and security. So far, we haven't, but I wonder how long we'll be able to have both. From the looks of other posts here, I'm not the only with that worry.

 

[Ryan]

One of the things that worried me in the wake of 9/11 was the question of whether we'd have to make a choice between freedom and security. So far, we haven't, but I wonder how long we'll be able to have both. From the looks of other posts here, I'm not the only with that worry.

I'd argue that we don't have both now, and that it's not possible to give up freedom to obtain security. I think that people are going to have to recognize that the world is a dangerous place and that people are going to attempt to do us harm.

With the cabin door secured, there's not going to be a repeat of a 9/11 style hijacking. Drop all of the security theater at the airport, use the money we save to put 2 -3 air marshals on every aircraft to stop boneheads from trying to pull this maneuver.

 

[jis]

but no that's too easy and effective.and now thanks to that recent attack attempt we may have to remove our pants.

Not to mention that frequent fliers will be exposed to significantly higher risk of cancer from all the radiation dosage that they will get from the X-Rays. But I suppose that is OK. Afterall that might force them to ride Amtrak. :unsure:

I as a frequent flier, given the choice, would prefer to take my belt and shoes off rather than get random radiation therapy at each security checkpoint.

A massage at each security checkpoint is far more preferable to getting radiation therapy IMHO :lol:

 

[PetalumaLoco]

There's talk of banning use of electronics in flight.

 

[GG-1]

but no that's too easy and effective.and now thanks to that recent attack attempt we may have to remove our pants.

Not to mention that frequent fliers will be exposed to significantly higher risk of cancer from all the radiation dosage that they will get from the X-Rays. But I suppose that is OK. Afterall that might force them to ride Amtrak. :unsure:

I as a frequent flier, given the choice, would prefer to take my belt and shoes off rather than get random radiation therapy at each security checkpoint.

A massage at each security checkpoint is far more preferable to getting radiation therapy IMHO :lol:

Aloha

How close are we to the Mechanics Ilustraded story, a bunch of years ago, where Air travelers would go to the Airport And have to change into paper jumpsuits, for the trip, their personal items sent in a separate container.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

There's talk of banning use of electronics in flight.

here we go again. electronics had nothing to do with the recent attempted attack. all he did was try to light so powder and liquid taped to his leg. so now we ban electronics. like another member said why why why do people insist flying is is great and amtrak sucks when you can't do nothing on a plane.

 

[Neil_M]

like another member said why why why do people insist flying is is great and amtrak sucks when you can't do nothing on a plane.

Because not everyone has 4 days to cross a country.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

like another member said why why why do people insist flying is is great and amtrak sucks when you can't do nothing on a plane.

Because not everyone has 4 days to cross a country.

so then don't take a vacation people will put up with this crap just so they can get a meeting in hong kong. stupid. instead of spending our tax dollars on security that won't do much spend it on highspeed trains that can go from chicago to L.A in 24 hours.