As a short term measure, this makes sense – we know that there is someone making bombs (not very good ones on all the evidence so far – even if they were viable) like printer cartridges.

So long as it is short term though.

Incidentally, anyone ever carried a printer cartridge with them travelling? I am sure there must be good reasons (visiting a colleague who lives a long way from the shops…) but I can’t think of one.

Lets just ban explosives on planes and be done with it

We could ban planes? Or do an Icelandic ritual so the ash cloud starts again?

What about toner refills?

This is all gettng a bit daft. Is there a satirist in the house?

Rachel

Or do an Icelandic ritual so the ash cloud starts again?

We might not need to:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/11/01/general-eu-iceland-volcano_8062479.html?boxes=Homepagebusinessnews

From the link:

“Icelandic Meteorological Office geophysicist Gunnar Gudmundsson said Monday that floodwater is coming from the subglacial Grimsvotn volcano, but there are no signs of the underground tremors that would signal an eruption.

He said that could change in the next few days or months, or not at all.”

I take it that’s a “don’t know” then.

Tonerists. Brilliant!

@4 Cherub: “Is there a satirist in the house?”

Come on, this is like the Tom Lehrer story: “There is an urban legend that Lehrer gave up political satire when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Henry Kissinger in 1973. He did comment that awarding the prize to Kissinger made political satire obsolete…”

Just imagine Theresa May standing at a security check with a set of weighing scales in her hands. “490 grammes for that printer cartridge, but be careful next time. Enjoy your flight!”

Ahh, brilliant. A solution to a problem that never existed and one that also doesn’t even solve the problem we currently do have.

Someone posts printer bombs on a cargo plane from Yemen, and our solution is to stop people from carrying on toner cartridges (it’s the first thing I pack when I’m going away) over a certain size in hand luggage. You can’t make this stuff up can you?

@1 Watchman: “As a short term measure, this makes sense – we know that there is someone making bombs (not very good ones on all the evidence so far – even if they were viable) like printer cartridges.”

Nope.

1. Toner cartridges have been converted into bombs by replacing the toner with PETN, slapping on a battery and detonator, with a mobile phone as the operating mechanism. The quality of construction isn’t great according to the photos that I have seen, but viable.

2. Efficacy will be determined by government scientists constructing a replica and deploying it in a test environment. Those scientists have my sincere respect.

3. We probably can never determine when the first terrorist blew up a plane, but it is largely a post-1970s phenomenon.

4. PETN has been around for donkeys years, predating powered flight. It has been available to plane bombers as long as plane bombers have existed. My understanding is that fresh PETN is stable and will not trigger detection systems. Stale PETN, whilst explosive, will be detected.

5. 500 grammes of PETN? 10 or 100 grammes are enough to blow a hole in the side of a plane.

6. Most airplane bomb plots could never succeed because the bombers focus on the explosive. Explosion is all about the detonator. Good detonators require nasty explosives that can be detected by airport scanners. Thus you end up with Richard Reid trying to ignite his explosive shoes using matches on a non-smoking flight. Alas, detonators that can pass though airport security exist.

7. Al-Qaeda presume that mobile phone triggered bombs work on the street in Iraq and Afghanistan, thus they should with planes. There is a quick solution for this: scan packages and luggage for RF signals emanating from the box.

8. Point 7 does not protect us from more sophisticated bombs.

9. The existence of undetectable explosives, detonators and triggers means that blanket behavioural bans (no liquids, no printer cartridges weighing more than 0.5Kg) are comical.

Didn’t realise I’d misspelt my message…

Misspelled.

Charlieman #10: depending on whether you count people who commit terrorist-type acts for non-political reasons as terrorists or not, the first fatal aircraft terrorist bombing was either in 1949, when Guay planted a bomb in his wife’s luggage to murder her for the insurance money with her fellow passengers and crew as collateral damage (which went to plan right up until the point where he was caught and hanged), or in 1955 when Taiwanese KMT agents planted a bomb on an Air India plane in the hope of killing the Chinese Premier (he missed the flight, but the bomb killed everyone else anyway).

But otherwise, yes, I agree.

“Albert Guay”. Not sure how I edited that out. Those crazy French Canadians…

It’s the War on Toner.

Of course, paper itself can give you a nasty cut. They should cut the corners off like in Battlestar Galactica.

There are no bombs you silly sheeples.
I find it more entertaining watching people watching X-Factor than actually watching the program. Just like this.. I laugh my ass off at reading peoples comments about government propaganda. You have to realise, anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that comes out of a politicians mouth is but lies.. FACT. So please stop fueling their lying egos and look at the world around you.

I always take a printer cartridge for long flights. Though it can stain my tongue I find it infinitely preferable to the airline meal.

@17,

Kate,

I knew there was a reason – and the evil government is once more setting out to destroy your little pleasures…