Before the wingers get all up in arms, this report isn't saying that it wasn't a terrorist act, or even that it absolutely failed (terrorism aims to terrorize, no?), but it does highlight the desperation and incompetence that Al Qaeda has sunk to. I mean, the kid hadn't even gotten the detonation drill down? I looked for the vid, it's not available in the US, but you can find versions here.
A bomb on board a U.S. Christmas Day flight would have failed to bring the plane down even if it had been detonated successfully, a new test explosion suggests.
A controlled blast on a Boeing 747, using the same explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of smuggling on board, failed to burst the fuselage.
It means, had the bomb exploded on December 25, Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit would have successfully landed .
However, experts said the alleged Islamist terrorist and the passenger next to him would have died, while other passengers would have suffered ruptured ear drums.
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The controlled experiment was carried out for the BBC Two documentary How safe are our Skies? Detroit Flight 253.
Dr John Wyatt, an international terrorism and explosives adviser to the UN, replicated the conditions on board the Detroit flight on a decommissioned Boeing 747 at an aircraft graveyard in Gloucestershire.
Captain Joseph said the noise and the smoke would have been awful, ‘not to mention the parts of the bodies that were disintegrated as part of the explosion’.
But Captain Joseph said the experiment could help to put air travellers at ease: ‘I think this should be a confidence-builder for passengers.
‘After seeing... how well the aircraft maintained its structural integrity, and obviously the pilot’s capacity to fly the aircraft, it should give them a great deal of confidence.
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