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Boeing 747 Exlposion Test: Video Shows Underwear Bomber Failure

by Sudha Krishna | March 10, 2010 at 05:47 pm

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Boeing 74 Explosion Test: Christmas Day Underwear Bomber Would Have Failed

New video of test explosion aboard a Boeing 747 shows that the Christmas Day bombing attempt aboard a United Airlines flight en route to Detroit would likely have failed.

Twenty-three year old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , aka the Underwear bomber has plead not guilty to concealing an explosive in his underwear in an attempt to blow up an United Airles Boeing 747.

The underwear bomber was subdued by passenger before he had a chance to detonate the bomb but recently released video shows he may have failed in blowing up the plane even if he detonated the device.

The description on the Youtube video says that a UN explosive expert Dr. John Wyatt and an air accident investigator Captain J. Joseph supervised the experiment which had an explosive device similar in power and in the same location where the bombing of flight 253 would have occurred.

What the video does not explain is what would happen if the plane was actually in the air when the explosion occurred? The test was done with the plane on the tarmac a valid test for things like structural integrity and though I am no aviation expert I am curious to know if the Boeing 747 Explosion test would be equally valid if it was conducted in mid-flight?

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Anonymous Commentator (not verified)

at 20:52 on March 10th, 2010

There's a major flaw in the design of this experiment. You'll notice that the doors are either missing or open. Much of the explosive force is therefore vented out the doors. A far more realistic test would have been to have the doors closed at the time of the explosion, thereby better reflecting the real-world scenario. Although the underwear bomber (presumably wearing Fruit of the Booms) tried to detonate the bomb near the ground, the "shoe" bomber tried to do so at altitude. Another interesting test would be to subject the fuselage to an explosion while the cabin is pressurized to the same differential as would exist at cruising altitude.