Jasper Schuringa

The flight coming in from Europe to Detroit on Christmas Day was carrying, in addition to the dirtbag I call the Wedgie Jihadist, a genuine unerschrocken hero, Jasper Schuringa, about whom you can read here.

 

Nice lookin' fella, eh? And, like former NYC mayor Ed Koch wondered in an editorial I can no longer find; where is praise and thanks from Obama to this hero? Nowhere. He's quick to wrongly say a police officer "acted stupidly" when arresting a black man, but there are no words of appreciation or even of acknowledgment to a genuine hero.

Be that as it may, it looks like others, according to Jasper at least, lent a hand although there were some who panicked and screamed.  I mean, what a pitifully stupid use of human energy in such a situation: to stand there and scream. If you're afraid to fight or can't get in any punches or kicks, then just pick a side and cheer ~ do a bake-sale or a car-wash for your guy ~ but don't stand there and scream.

Mark Steyn has written a couple of pertinent articles, here and here, which are both insightful and amusing. 

So now it looks like the wizards at TSA are going to solve the whole thing by screwing us over again. I agree with Mark Steyn; if they search you ~ someone wholly innocent ~ it's not because they're doing something right, it's because they're doing something wrong by not looking for or at the people who really need to be checked out thoroughly. Some of the new TSA rules, which may or may not be obeyed by the airlines, only kick in near the end of the flight. Why, oh why?

The reason detonation attempts are made just before landing are these: 

• Bombers would want to inflict maximum damage over a city both to horrify those on the ground and to kill as many as possible with the falling debris and fire, but it would not be easy to put a fully assembled bomb on a plane and detonate it within seconds of take-off. 
• Search procedures and equipment might detect a fully assembled device prior to emplacement on a plane so the components must be brought on separately and assembled in the air, which takes time to be done right.

That's the why. Here's the how:

• Depending on the complexity a/o size of the device, there might be as many or as few as three people carrying different components aboard, to assemble in-flight:
  • detonator, which can be as small as a cigarette lighter or a pencil
  • small booster charge into which the detonator would be placed
  • larger charge of  low-sensitivity/high energy explosive such as PETN
• For maximum damage to the plane, the charge would need to be detonated by someone in a window seat, over the wing fuel tanks. The charge would ideally be put on the floor to maximize explosive thrust through the floor into the tank, and up against the bulkhead to punch a hole in the wall, depressurizing the cabin and perhaps busting a chunk of the wing off so that it is more likely to separate from the fuselage, causing catastrophic failure and destruction of the aircraft. 

Below you can see the seats most likely to hold terrorists intent on bringing down a plane ~ in this case a Boeing 757.  Generally speaking, the most likely place a man or woman with a bomb will be seated is:

• Two-class configuration
  • Seats A or F, rows 12-22 for attempt to explode fuel tanks
  • Seats A or F, rows 21 or 22 to try to take off the wing, too
• Three class configuration
  • Seats A or F, rows 7-16 for attempt to blow fuel tanks
  • Seats A 0r F rows, 15 or 16 to try to take wing off, too

This area was where the Wedgie Jihadist sat, and where Richard Reid sat on his flight, as well.

 
Richard Reid, AKA: The Shoe Bomber

 
A reasonable facsimile of Reid's device

So, adjust those letters and numbers depending on which make and size of aircraft you're getting on. Basically, they want to get over the fuel tanks, against the wall, close to the trailing edge of the wing.

Maybe you'd like to keep an extra-open eye on people sitting in those seats.  I'm just sayin'. And, depending on the size of the bomb, there may be more than three people, in fact dry runs have been done in the past with as many as fourteen people.

Quick quiz: Anybody remember American Airlines Flight 587? No? Take a look here and let me know what you think: accident or successful attack. Witnesses on the ground that day said they heard two explosions ~ the sound of the plane going boom when it hit the ground and a smaller explosion a few moments before that ~ and saw there was a small explosion at the side of the plane, where the back of the wing meets the fuselage, and then the engine fell off and the plane crashed.

Okay, since nobody's going to be sneaking any shoe-bombs past those eagle-eyes at TSA, let's get back to the set-up we were discussing; three people trying to get a bomb on board a plane.

We know where the guy or girl with the explosives will be sitting.  What about the other two? My guess is they'd sit in front of the terrorist with the bomb so they can be seen by him when they go to the lavatory, which will probably be the lav closest to and in front of the terrorist with the bomb.

Assuming the terrorists rehearsed this many times, which they did, it might go like this:

• A team of three terrorists would buy tickets from a small airport ~ such as John Wayne or Ontario Airports near LA ~ trying to get on the biggest plane that flies out of there to the farthest destination to which planes from there can fly.
• At the proper time ~ generally, when there is less than an hour of flight-time left ~ the guy with the detonator goes to the designated lavatory and hides it.  The detonator is small and so can be hidden easily.
• When he's done, right behind him comes the one with the booster charge who finds the detonator and puts it into the small explosive charge and then hides the device again, which just got bigger, so there are fewer hiding places now. He may have had to carry the booster charge in a small container such as a paper bag or shaving kit. The device might be so large at this point that there is nowhere in the itsy-bitsy lav to hide it, so, one way or another it's going to be really really important that the guy with the bomb gets in the lav next.
• The guy wearing the bomb is waiting outside the lavatory door to enter when the guy who just hid the booster leaves. In order to pull this off, he might have to jump to the head of the line. His or her rude attempt might raise a ruckus so, if I were the genius putting this attack together, I'd use a woman for this part because men are more likely to let her jump the line without complaint. Plus, she can hide larger chunks of explosives in a bra or fake pregnancy device... whatever that's called.  She goes in with a travel bag ~ a large purse, or the pregnancy hump, perhaps ~ attaches the booster w/detonator to the chunk of explosive she's carrying and then proceeds back to her seat. At that time, the device is fully assembled, ready for her to detonate it, which will most likely be done as the aircraft is at a height where you can make out people on the ground. 
• Between the time the lady comes out of the latrine and the landing gear goes down, I wouldn't be surprised to see one or both of the others on the team walk up/down the aisle and give a signal to the woman; something like a thumbs-up of encouragement or to ask if she's ready to go.

So, below you can see what PETN in sheets  looks like on the roll. That's about 18" wide. It can be molded to body parts and would be almost impossible to detect if a full body scanner were not used. Magnanometers/wands won't pick it up, pat-down might not.  A dog probably would pick it up, though.  If it can be bought here or anywhere else in the country, then bad-guys can steal it, too.

 

So here's the deal: before you buy tickets for a flight, take a look at the layout of the plane, diagrams of which you can find at Ask.com or Bing.com, if the airline doesn't have them posted on their site.  If for some reason you plan to do absolutely nothing if the shit hits the fan, then get a seat in the back of the plane so you can stay out of the way.  If you intend to report suspicious activity to the flight crew a/o fight back in event of an attempted aircraft bombing/takeover, entirely your decision, you need to buy tickets for the seats terrorists want~ as discussed and depicted above ~ before they can purchase them.  If you can't get those, then get the seats next to or behind them. If you buy seats in front of them, then you blow your cover as you watch them, and lose the element of surprise if you choose to fight.

Take a look here at one of my previous posts on fighting on an airplane, and another post here with some more detail. Be sure to watch the video here made by a former Navy SEAL on how to take back a hijacked plane.

Suck it up, unerschrocken. It ain't gonna get better soon.

Hey, check this out.

Update: Take a look at this story if you aren't convinced they will try to blow up the plane on take-off.

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[Undaunted]

Thanks, I was trying to keep it simple.

The link at the very bottom of my post shows that take-downs at take-off can be done easily. I'm drafting something on that now, but have covered the basics of what to look for in the boarding area.

When I finish that post, I'll put it up.

[John]

A bit simplified but yes this is one way of thinking. Unfortunately it all depends on the size of the explosive. Small and I mean small devices like the shoe bomb need to be over the fuel tanks to have maximum effect. Anything a little bit bigger then that can be placed into the last rows of an airplane where the control cables for the rear are routed. Blowing of and interupting the rear will ditch the plane as sure as blowing up the fuel tanks. In fact, blowing up the fuel tanks has one unwanted side effect in that the majority of the fuel will burn up in air without doing more collateral damage. For maximum effect, a would be bomber would want to make sure that the planes fuel is available to inflict more damage. A plane will have 90% of its fuel burned by the time it is landing and so in order to have the maximum damage at that point it would be better to rip the tail of and have the plane become a hundred ton fuel bomb. In fact, speaking of fuel...it would be better to blow up the plane right after take off once it is over a suitable target so that there is enough flamable liquid available. The notion to wait until it lands is in my opinion a thinking that will change fast. I do not believe in the scenario that several people are needed to assemble this bomb, and if you see how long an airplane is over a city before it is high enough to leave there is ample of time to blow it up. Moreover, I believe that the time of the flying terrorist is coming to an end and you will find the terrorist that waits near an airport for either arriving or leaving targets with a stinger like shoulder missile.

JR

[Peggy]

Hmmm. Magnanometers won't pick up the PETN, but a dog will. So when do we start doing the logical thing and requiring all airline passengers to be sniffed before boarding? Oh, wait, dogs are unclean, according to Islam! Maybe we should just have dogs sniff random Presbyterians and Baptists. Yeah, that's it. I feel safer already.

Sorry for the cynicism, but I'm fed up with hearing about TSA policies whose only effect is to vex and inconvenience law-abiding air travelers, while our mortal enemies get the benefit of the doubt every time.

[David]

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[Sheena]

This is a great blog by the way!
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[Sheena]

Excellent Article!
Finally a positive and constructive article about this close call.
I always wondered why the brave Jasper Schuringa never got any public thanks or media attention for his heroism. (But then again, maybe he doesn't want it, due to security concerns)
Outstanding work!