If a guy is willing to blow up the plane he is flying on, do you really believe that living with a stick of dynamite shoved up his ass for his final 5 hours is going to be a deterrent?
Nope. But I do think that a butt bomb is significantly less of a threat than a suitcase bomb. The Lockerbie bomb ripped a 747 to pieces. I'm no explosives expert, but I imagine the worst thing an anus-sized bomb could do would be to punch a hole in the side, which would probably be survivable.
I'm not speaking from personal experience on this, but if you think it's far-fetched that someone couldn't fit one, if not multiple entire sticks of dynamite up their ass, you should be glad to have lived a sheltered life.
You need surprisingly little actual explosive if you know what you're doing. Which is, you would not use the explosive itself to do the damage, rather as a propellant for shrapnel. I don't know if you've ever handled a grenade but they're quite small, about the size of an apple. You could easily manufacture one with the correct form factor for uhh, insertion. And if you were smart enough to do that, you'd also be smart enough to book a seat in the right place on the plane. Or even, use a shaped charge...
Planes have depressurized at altitude and landed safely, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811. The plane depressurized and sucked several rows of seats out. Passengers were sucked through the engine. But still, it landed safely and most people on board survived.
Yeah, it would be scary if you were on this flight... but if you want to kill 500 people there are a lot easier ways than sticking explosives up your ass and detonating them on the plane.
Good point. If you were serious about terrorism, and had an ounce of intelligence, why would you go after a plane at all? There are a huge number of other things you could attack, that are much easier targets. Football games have a lot of people packed in a small space, and if you set off a panic with a bomb or something, more people would be injured. If you sneak into a big party and spike the punch with poison, it would scare the crap out of people -- is nowhere safe? Or sneak a bomb into someone else's carry-on luggage, and set it off when they're waiting in the security line. What's the TSA going to do? Make a security line to get in the security line?
Making people afraid to attend football games or parties is a lot less costly than making them afraid to fly. Shut down the airports and you shut down the economy--look what happened with the Iceland volcano. And they have trains.
Yes and no. Making football games inaccessible to the masses would lead to revolt faster than making life difficult for people who fly. To a large extent, people who fly regularly are rather self-disciplined and have invested a lot of money in getting where they're going. Football-goers can be drunk, are already hyper-emotional and riots and hooliganry is not unknown there hm?
Bread and circuses - flying is the bread, but team spectator sports are the circuses.
Can the plane stay strucurally stable when a chunk of it has been blown off. Blow up in the right spot and you have a plane split in 2, and it doesn't matter if it's depressurized.
Nope. But I do think that a butt bomb is significantly less of a threat than a suitcase bomb. The Lockerbie bomb ripped a 747 to pieces. I'm no explosives expert, but I imagine the worst thing an anus-sized bomb could do would be to punch a hole in the side, which would probably be survivable.