Metrojet plane may have been taken down by bomb on board

June

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 1:00 am

Reports are now suggesting that a bomb may have exploded on board, which caused the plane to break up at 30,000 feet. ( http://www.jpost.com/Middle-Ea.....32069 )

Anyone else feels that this is just the beginning of a new threat in air travel?

DrMom

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 1:06 am

As soon as they ruled out the ability of ISIS to launch a surface-to-air attack on a plane flying at that altitude, I thought, "well then it was a bomb they planted."

Heck, the airplane took off from Egypt. Who knows what maintenance guy or ground crew guy is really an ISIS operative?

June

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 1:14 am

DrMom wrote:

yes, and I doubt such a thing could happen in Ben Gurion airport. But JFK? Charles DeGaulle? Heathrow? You don't think ISIS could infiltrate these airports?

I once read a report on stealing by airport workers in JFK, and it was astonishing how few background checks were done on these people.

morah

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 3:53 am

Planting bombs is nothing new. The bomb that brought down the Pan Am flight in 1988 was planted. Authorities learned from that and put measures in place. It's not easy to pull off these days. It's part of why the 9/11 hijackers weren't stopped. Authorities DID suspect a number of them of bad intentions and one of the things they were trained to look for was being checked in but not boarding the plane (which would indicate that they planted something). Well, they did get on the plane, so authorities thought it was fine... I would worry more about this happening with a flight originating in a place like Egypt than Israel or America or the UK.

etky

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 4:53 am

morah wrote:

Right. I always took it for granted that there were measures that the general public doesn't know about that high risk airlines like ElAl and/or big first world airports take to avert this type of attack b/c planting bombs is indeed nothing new.
The 9/11 attacks happened at the beginning of the Second Intifada, before the western world became habituated to the idea of Arab suicide bombers and of them posing a threat to the West too.
One would not expect security at resort places like Sharm El-Sheikh to be as tight as at JFK, Heathrow or Frankfurt. Ben Gurion of course is in a different category altogther....

fashgurl

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 5:01 am

The British foreign minister gave a press conference yesterday announcing it was probably a bomb and cancelling all flights in and out of Sharm el-Sheikh, and the Prime Minister repeated this today, there is no way they would announce that unless they had credible EVIDENCE that it was a bomb, its not just speculation.

But I agree that I would worry more about this happening with a flight originating in a place like Egypt than Israel, America or the UK, you cant even bring a bottle of water on board from the crazy UK, never mind a bomb!

gp2.0

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 5:30 am

fashgurl wrote:

The whole point of not bringing liquids through airport security is that there are explosive chemicals that can masquerade as innocent liquids until they are combined.

fashgurl

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 5:31 am

gp2.0 wrote:

The whole point of not bringing liquids through airport security is that there are explosive chemicals that can masquerade as innocent liquids until they are combined.

That was the original hysterical response, which obviously makes no sense, so the most secure airport/airline in the world (Ben Gurion/Elal) dont bother with that, they bother with actual real threats, not silliness like water!

groisamomma

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 6:21 am

fashgurl wrote:

I don't know, I'd rather give up my water bottle and drink what the airplane serves than risk some terrorist bringing clear explosive liquid in his water bottle into the plane...

water_bear88

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 6:37 am

I haven't flown recently, but I remember being asked (since 9/11) to drink from my bottle to prove it was water. Why can't they continue with that?

Also, Ben Gurion will let you bring an empty bottle through to refill somewhere past security. I know I had an empty bottle thrown out in a US airport trying to do the same.

ariellabella

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 8:36 am

I think the big issue is checked baggage. It may have changed since I last read about this, but even in the US only a small fraction of checked luggage is screened/xrayed. I believe they check most cases flying out of Ben Gurion.

etky

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 8:40 am

The lead story on Ynet right now is about the shockingly lax and negligent security at the Sharm El-Sheikh airport. Tourists were quoted as complaining that security guards were more interested in playing Candy Crush, napping and smoking than in monitoring the screens of the luggage x-ray machines. If indeed it was a bomb planted by ISIS that caused the crash, it obviously wasn't so hard to get it aboard the Russian aircraft.

PinkFridge

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 5:29 pm

sequoia wrote:

I think it was an inside job. As were the apartment buildings, school, theater, and subway bombings. He's like that. Enjoys it. Cements his power.

That hug was not a "refuah shleima you're delusional hug" but because I know this hits close to home for you.

shoshanim999

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 6:46 pm

This was Egypt. A bunch of Muslims working in the airport. So one (or two) was working with ISIS and had access to the plane and planted a bomb. No I'm not worried AT ALL about flying out of a New York or any other city in the U.S. or Israel. How many hundreds of thousands of flights have there been since 9-11 without a single terrorist incident in the U.S.? So the lesson is don't trust security that is being overseen by Arabs. Is anyone really surprised???

etky

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 11:15 pm

shoshanim999 wrote:

Agreed, but....this morning I read the following:

"The Department of Homeland Security is expected to call as soon as tomorrow for heightened security measures at strategic foreign airports that have direct flights to the U.S., aviation and government officials told ABC News, in the wake of the Russian airline tragedy.

In addition to the requests to be made of last point of departure (LPD) airports, other security measures being discussed include more diligent baggage screening at major domestic U.S. airports -- to also potentially include matching of luggage to manifest lists before takeoff".

Makes me wonder how tight security really is in airports outside of Israel and how much they really need to improve it.....

notshanarishona

Thu, Nov 05 2015, 11:38 pm

groisamomma wrote:

I don't know, I'd rather give up my water bottle and drink what the airplane serves than risk some terrorist bringing clear explosive liquid in his water bottle into the plane...

The risks of a bomb in water are so low that it is a joke the way they go crazy over water .
If you stop water, you will get the underwater bomber.
If you get x ray machines, you will get people putting bombs on pregnant ladies or people who can't go through the x ray machines.
Terrorists are always one step ahead. They don't attempt the same bomb two times in a row.

DrMom

Fri, Nov 06 2015, 12:20 am

notshanarishona wrote:

They don't think there's a bomb in water. They suspect the liquid in your water-bottle is not actually water, but rather a component of a chemical explosive.

I agree that most TSA activities are "security theater."