Re: New Airport Security still SUCKS

From: Dan Clemmensen (dgc@cox.rr.com)
Date: Thu Sep 20 2001 - 17:59:09 MDT


Randy Smith wrote:

>
> If a person wants to kill a bunch of other people, it's really not that
> hard. The WTC terrorists could have walked right up into the WTC with a
> big fat bomb in a suitcase in a wheeled carryall, gotten in an elevator,
> gotten off on a floor with a common bathroom, and placed it in a
> bathroom stall, jammed the stall lock and walked away, and ten minutes
> later, kablooey! You could blow up the building...I
> suppose...Professional workaholics carry these suitcases on wheels into
> these skyscrapers every day. And, in the middle of the day, you can
> walk right into the elevators and right into a publicly accessible
> bathroom. Can you get enough kablooey stuff into one of those suitcases
> to take down a power tower?
>

No. The truck bomb attempt in 1993 failed. That truck was a lot bigger
than a suitcase. The airplane attack had more kinetic energy than such
a bomb, but the kinetic energy did not take down the towers. Each tower
collapsed after more than an hour of intense heat, which resulted from
the burning of roughly 10,000 gallons of kerosene (i.e. jet fuel.)

Not all buildings are as strong as the WTCs. If your terrorist wants
to take out a smaller building, he might consider delivering a soda
machine rather than a suitcase.



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