I haven't studied chemistry since school, so I have no basis to judge this story on mixing chemicals, but I do remember that to make gunpowder you need some basic ingredients which none of the below include.
Toothpaste, bottled water, shampoo, baby formula, hair gel. All these things that are now deemed too dangerous to bring with you in your carry-on luggasge on an airplane. Well to be exact, since August 10, when British authorities "foiled" a terror plot by Islamic extremists to blow up ten planes on the way from London to America.
The official story goes like this: According to the British and U.S. governments, the suspected hijackers were going to use TATP--triacetone triperoxide--to blow themselves and thousands of airline passengers to kingdom come.
TATP is an explosive that can purportedly be made from some rather inconspicuous liquid components, such as drain cleaner, hair dye and paint thinner, which the terrorists wanted to smuggle on board in simple drink bottles and mix them together in the lavatories to create the cocktail from hell.
But critics of the official story--among them Thomas C. Greene from the British The Register--believe that the official version of the events is hogwash. No terrorist with even an ounce of brains, he says, would try to make TATP in an airplane toilet...because it is virtually impossible for a trained chemist, let alone a terrorist.
Here is Greene's "Mixing Explosives 101," the step-by-step instructions for wannabe terrorists.
"Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drinks bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane. It's all right to mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, so long as it remains cool. Don't forget to bring several frozen gel-packs [...], a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper. You're going to need them...
"It's best to fly first class and order Champagne. The bucket full of ice water, which the airline ought to supply, might possibly be adequate [...] to get you through the cookery without starting a fire in the lavvie."
"Once the plane is over the ocean," Greene advises, "very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. [...] Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide/acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket) and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else."
Chemists say the fumes while making TATP are so overpowering that anything but a lab-quality air evacuation system will not do--let alone a tiny airplane lavatory. And after carefully stirring the components together, the mix would have to stand for at least 24 hours (or more) at a temperature of between 33 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Too hot and instead of TATP, diperoxide is formed, which is too unstable to work with. Too cold and there is no reaction at all.
What about just taking the needed precursors, dump them all together in an airplane toilet bowl and let the stuff fizzle until it explodes?
"Indeed, the mixture will heat rapidly as TATP begins to form," says Greene, "and it will soon explode. But this won't happen with much force, because little TATP will have formed by the time the explosion occurs."
Chemistry professor Jimmie C. Oxley from the University of Rhode Island confirms that merely putting the components together would create "a violent reaction," but not a detonation.
So, to sum it up, the best a terrorist attempting to create TATP in an airplane lavatory could do is suffocate or blow himself up, with little to no damage to the toilet or the airplane itself.
Then how about bringing the TATP pre-made and ready to use on board? Equally impractical, say experts, because the explosive is as unstable as nitroglycerin, making it more than likely that a terrorist would blast himself to smithereens before he'd ever set foot on a plane.
Impossible chemistry experiments aside, there are other clues that the London terror plot was nothing but a clever smoke-and-mirrors game of the British and U.S. governments--potentially to raise dwindling approval rates by a few percentage points.
Not only that the "informant" in Pakistan, who allegedly gave up the conspirators, was a man wanted in the UK for being suspected of having murdered his uncle. It also seems strange that not one of the purported bombers had a plane ticket. None of them had made a bomb. Stranger yet, some of them didn't even have passports.
But why let reality get in the way of a good story?
PS: Latest reports say the terror suspects won't be brought to trial until 2008. Which ensures that the general public will have forgotten about it by then...]
