on a disposable camera. One of the camera’s two batteries was converted to an improvised detonator.
It was
hollowed out and the empty casing filled with powdered explosive, also based on organic peroxides. Bridge wires were concealed inside the battery casing, which was then to be reinserted into the camera, alongside its unmodified neighbour.
The plan
was for the perpetrators to board the aircraft with the camera on one part of their persons and the drinks bottles on another. The only item that may have appeared suspicious was the modified battery. Once in flight the perpetrators would assemble the devices and initiate them using power from the unmodified battery through the camera’s flash system. There was much nonsense written in the press at the time, to the effect that the terrorists intended to actually make the explosives on board the aircraft. This was not the case at all. All of the components, including the explosives, were to be pre-prepared.
It would
simply be a matter of connecting a few components. Although the three examples discussed ultimately failed, they all
had a very good chance of succeeding. The 1986 and 2006 plots were foiled by effective security and police work. The 2009 attempt failed only due to the device itself being chemically unviable. The fact remains that the bomber succeeded in getting the device onto an aircraft.
“
...they must know what they are looking for. They should be able to recognise not just complete IEDs, but IED components, and objects that can easily be converted into IED components...”
As a means of defeating security, dispersal of IED components is clearly a technique that has the potential to succeed. But like any terrorist technique it can be predicted and countered.
The key is excellent
security staff training and constant vigilance. Good training is relatively easy to achieve if the effort is made
but sustained alertness can be more challenging. It is a given that security staff must know how to operate the instruments they are tasked with using and be able to conduct efficient and effective searches. But, crucially, they must know what they are looking for. They should be able to recognise not just complete IEDs, but IED components, and objects that can easily be converted into IED components. It is difficult for staff, when they process thousands of passengers a day, to stay alert enough to spot the everyday electronic device that has been tampered with, or that one component of the wrong type or in the wrong place. But that combination of knowledge and alertness may be the one thing that prevents a disaster.
Bruce Cochrane spent 24 years as an Ammunition Technician in the British Army. He has conducted over a thousand operational bomb disposal tasks in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq. He now runs the Heyford Explosive Threat Consultancy, which provides training for security professionals on the threat from, and responses to, IEDs and other explosive hazards.
www.theheyfordconsultancy.com
August 2012 Aviationsecurityinternational
www.asi-mag.com
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