Nadeem Muhammad, 43, was searched as he attempted to board a flight to Bergamo on 30 January. Security officers found the device, made from batteries, tape, a marker pen and pins, in the zip lining of a small green suitcase he was carrying.

A trial at Manchester crown court on Monday was told that Muhammad, who was born in Pakistan but had an Italian passport, had intended to detonate the device on the Ryanair flight.

Airport security swabbed the confiscated device but found no trace of explosives, so concluded it was not dangerous. Muhammad was questioned by police and said the device could have been put into his bag by somebody else, possibly his wife.

He missed his flight, but was not arrested, and was able to board another flight to Italy a few days later on 5 February. “At that stage nobody had realised this was a real device and the defendant was allowed to go on his way,” said Jonathan Sandiford, for the prosecution.

On 8 February, when the device was examined again, suspicions were raised and a bomb squad called. Explosives experts found it was a “crude but potentially viable improvised explosive device” and Muhammad was arrested when he returned to the UK on 12 February.

Not very reassuring!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/31/pipe-bomber-stopped-manchester-airport-let-plane-two-days-later-nadeem-muhammad

I have been able to transport a locking blade Swiss Army knife in cabin baggage through 2 airports in the 90’s. Seems things haven’t improved on the security theatre front.

I rode my motorbike all the way back from North Africa in April, right through central London without any of my luggage being opened or scanned at any point. It’s all security theatre.

Rachel

I went through an airport in China yesterday. They swab everybody going through the door for explosives – you are put in a corral until the test is passed and you can enter the building.

I think our risk based approach is good, there are a few things that slip through the net but the only way to be secure is to block travel completely which is obviously not viable.

It doesn’t fill you with confidence that the security system identified and confiscated a suspicious device and brought a suspect to trial?

It wasn’t a viable device. If it was swabbed and no trace of explosives or the ingredients that make up explosives were found then there were no explosives in the device. End of.

I got stopped at Manchester airport after a bag swab came up positive a few trips ago. I was questioned about how I might have handled anything containing Nitrates in the last week. I had, as it happened, been on my companies shop floor and briefly handled a component we manufacture than has a heat resistant coating applied to it that does contain a whole host of different chemicals, so I concluded it must have been that on the basis i’m not a keen gardener and routinely handle fertilisers. So the count of particles on my bag that had been transferred onto it 4 days or so on after my handling a ‘contaminated’ component for a few seconds, having had my hands in my pockets and handled other things, washed my hands in between was still enough to set off the airport security swab analyser. These things are ultra sensitive. If they don’t detect any explosives on something, there are no explosives.

The good old media, trying to whip up a sense of outrage in people for no good reason. You really need to stop taking on face value what you read in the media. Always read with a healthy dose of suspicion and scepticism. The media in our country really is not very good at all.

n 8 February, when the device was examined again, suspicions were raised and a bomb squad called. Explosives experts found it was a “crude but potentially viable improvised explosive device”

It wasn’t a viable device. If it was swabbed and no trace of explosives or the ingredients that make up explosives were found then there were no explosives in the device. End of.

??

It wasn’t a viable device. If it was swabbed and no trace of explosives or the ingredients that make up explosives were found then there were no explosives in the device. End of.

You can’t seriously believe this…

Presumably, not all bombs contain nitrates. 🙄 More likely the reason it got through is down to apathy, distraction, and the fact that airport security employees are rarely the intellectual creme-de-la-creme.

I’ve set off the explosives detector before (or my bag has), and apart from the fact that I had my bag searched thoroughly the only consequence was that the flight went 20 minutes late.

I rode my motorbike all the way back from North Africa in April, right through central London without any of my luggage being opened or scanned at any point. It’s all security theatre.

I enjoyed last years road trip pictures can we have some from this year please.

When your main line of defence is manned by highly trained operatives minimum-wage flunkies, it’s reassuring 😉

Also, if you understand safe-systems and human error there’s a risk that multiple-layers of security e.g. repeated luggage scanning / swabbing actually compounds errors rather than minimises them.

I rode my motorbike all the way back from North Africa in April, right through central London without any of my luggage being opened or scanned at any point.

Had you taken it on a plane I’d have been slightly more concerned.

I’ve flown US to UK without having my hand baggage scanned. For some reason they didn’t bother in SLC and I transferred at MSP to a Virgin flight to Heathrow without any more checks.

What’s SLG and MSP? The rest of us plebs don’t understand.

It sounds to me as if the “device” was a string of batteries, possibly packed in a tube of the sort used to power electric sun blinds. If you joined the ends of that with a fat wire I bet you’d get a bit of a bang as everything overheated.

What’s SLG and MSP? The rest of us plebs don’t understand.

IATA 3-Letter Airport Codes

SLC = Salt Lake City
MSP = Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport

zippykona – stupidly didn’t take many in Morocco (yeah, I know, I know). Riding down to Vienna in September so will make a special effort for you!

There is this one, though – which was the entrance to my hotel in Fès. I was riding solo and all I could think was “oh, you’ve really messed up this time Rachel. You’re going to die…” 😆

Some guy came out and ushered me to ride up the alleyway. Turned out the place was amazing!

Rachel

8 February, when the device was examined again, suspicions were raised and a bomb squad called. Explosives experts found it was a “crude but potentially viable improvised explosive device”

It wasn’t a viable device. If it was swabbed and no trace of explosives or the ingredients that make up explosives were found then there were no explosives in the device. End of.

??

Potentially viable. So what would have been required to make it viable?? Maybe the addition of explosives???? It’s not what is reported you have to look out for, but what is not reported.

It wasn’t a viable device. If it was swabbed and no trace of explosives or the ingredients that make up explosives were found then there were no explosives in the device. End of.

You can’t seriously believe this…

Presumably, not all bombs contain nitrates.

Yes I do believe it. The whole point was the sensitivity of these machines is down to the parts per million. If these machines don’t detect any material then none exists. Simple. If some exists but at quantities too small to be detected by the equipment then they are harmless. And all bombs probably don’t contain nitrates…but these machines test for a whole plethora of chemicals, not just nitrates, that was just the positive hit when my bag was swabbed.

Anyway, how do we know what the strategy was in this case? Maybe this chap was known to the security services and was being watched all along. Maybe they tested the device to check it was harmless, and once confirmed it was harmless let him continue his journey, on purpose, to see who he met up with to try to discover more people involved in the plot or network? We can’t know this because of the sloppy and incomplete job the journalist did.

My point being journalism of this nature is misleading, incorrect, doesn’t improve people understanding of anything, doesn’t provide any context and just printed to stir people up and feed off their paranoia. They just want to undermine the security services and try to make them look like a bunch of fools, when they actually do a great job under almost impossible circumstances.

Maybe they tested the device to check it was harmless, and once confirmed it was harmless let him continue his journey, on purpose, to see who he met up with to try to discover more people involved in the plot or network? We can’t know this because of the sloppy and incomplete job the journalist did.

you are trying really hard there

still not convincing anyone though, the article is informative and balanced, its not sensationalised and is interesting

the guy is being charged with carrying a viable IED onto the plane that it took the security services 2 attempts to verify

Airports – I used to wear a money belt (holding my trousers up belt not body belt) with a metal zip. Wore it through numerous airports including Heathrow, it always set the metal detectors off. After 2 or 3 passes, the security guys just gave up trying to find out what it was and let me through anyway. The only two places I had to take the belt off for investigation were Palermo Airport and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Couple of weeks after 9/11 i breezed through from Newcastle to Gatwick with a leatherman wave in my laptop bag.

The week after Schiphol tried to confiscate a set of leads for an oscilloscope. Luckily the pilot was coming through and said he would take them in the flight deck and return them in Heathrow. Seemed a bit odd to me but was as good as his word.

Hit and miss it seems.

Airports – I used to wear a money belt (holding my trousers up belt not body belt) with a metal zip. Wore it through numerous airports including Heathrow, it always set the metal detectors off.

Why didn’t you remove your belt and put it through the x-ray scanner ?

Or… maybe just tell them what it was when you (purposefully) set off the scanner.

aren’t the flight crew bound by the same rules?

I had a bag of zipties that were forgotten at the bottom of my laptop bag taken off me at bristol once. still not sure how even with my best macgyver on how I could have been a security risk with them.

err the article is not clear but it seems the device was seized on 30th January as it was suspicious, he was allowed to go home without it . He left the country on the 5th February. Full examination of the device was on the 8th February. He was then arrested when he came home.
If that reading of the timeline is correct then he did not get anywhere near a plane with the suspicious device and security did it’s job.

Why didn’t you remove your belt and put it through the x-ray scanner ?

because not fannying about taking a belt off and putting it back on again is less effort than walking through a scanner two or three times.

Or… maybe just tell them what it was when you (purposefully) set off the scanner.

Or…. maybe they could have asked? Again, all I have to do is walk through the scanner a couple of times and I’ll get through – why bother getting involved in a conversation?

jam bo – Member

aren’t the flight crew bound by the same rules?

I assume not but know nothing of aviation other than as a passenger. I could not understand what possible risk they could have been and was putting my case very politely when the flight crew came through security. Captain asked the security guy a question in Dutch and said he would take them for me.

I am sure someone on here will know the answer though.

I can’t help but feel that the majority of security in airports is just going through the motions. Bag got flagged on the way to Prague the guy at the desk looked at me then looked at my bag asked what was in it (clothing and camera) then just handed me the bag without opening it, which was a relief I had 5kg of cocaine in there.

A couple of weeks after the tube bombings I flew back from Geneva with a couple packets of french bangers in my hand luggage simply forgot they where there.

Just been through Venice and the most Italian thing happened.
It was around 5PM and after a screw up I was going on to a connecting flight so had to go through security. Some large lady who wasn’t pleased to see us rose from her office mumbled to us, checked our boarding pass and just said we could go through security whilst every thing was beeping and blaring. No fks given. I was even holding a full water bottle.

Yeah well we had machine gun guys just as we were getting on the plane at Manchester last week. I’ve no idea what that would achieve given everyone’s already been through security.

Never thought about it at the time.. but I picked up some quality metal BB handguns in Mallorca as gifts..

Chucked them in my suitcase.. sailed through baggage without issue.

Potentially viable. So what would have been required to make it viable?? Maybe the addition of explosives???

According to the report in today’s Metro, Jonathan Sandiford (prosecutor) said that if the wires at either end of the tube had been connected the bomb would have gone off.

The defendant denies possession of explosives with intent to endanger life and possession of explosives under suspicious circumstances.

Sounds like some explosives may have been involved then.

It wasn’t a viable device. If it was swabbed and no trace of explosives or the ingredients that make up explosives were found then there were no explosives in the device. End of.

that certainly won’t be the case… it is esssentially impossible to make a device that can detect every possible explosive with an acceptable level of false positives. Even if it contains the relevant materials, detection on the outside of the package usually could be avoided with sufficient care and forensic hygiene in packaging.

Even with the relevant screens in place some things will get through. Very recently we accidentally flew with a small penknife in hand luggage. It was spotted on the scanner, and the big thoroughly searched. She couldn’t find it, and when she told us what she was looking for we realised that it had wrongly been placed in the hand rather than hold luggage. According to airline rules it should have been confiscated, that is what I expected (and it was a cheap knife so I had no worries) but she actually gave it back to us and said “next time just bring it out like a laptop” and it will be fine. I still don’t know if the error is hers, a difference in airport policy (it was in the EU) or the airline lists out of date info on what can be carried. With that and a packet of zip ties (never had a problem flying with them) you could cause some serious alarm on a flight, even if you might eventually be over thrown.

because not fannying about taking a belt off and putting it back on again is less effort than walking through a scanner two or three times.

Again, all I have to do is walk through the scanner a couple of times and I’ll get through – why bother getting involved in a conversation?

Ah ok. Your one of those “helpful” people that everybody enjoys dealing with.

Fair enough.

Before 9/11 I got on dozens of flights with my Leatherman on my belt. Only twice was it taken of me and put in the hold and they were on flights from Gatwick to Edinburgh. Never could work out why the security was tighter than for an international flight.

Stable door / horse etc.

If what you are trying to achieve is death and injury there are loads of ways you can do that which haven’t been restricted, such as driving a car into a crowd of people or throwing bleach around. We rely a lot on people not doing these things.

As for walking through security with supposedly dangerous things it’s no good making everybody put their laptop in a special tray and take their shoes off on the flight out if the illiterate boy soldier doing the security at GVBA* doesn’t give you so much as a cursory glance on the way back.

* Specially for our international jetsetters.

Many years ago I came back through Geneva with a Victorinox Swiss Army knife in the bottom of my rucsac (as hand baggage). Had no idea it was there. Took them ages to find it and they wouldn’t tell me what they’d seen. They confiscated it – fair enough.

A year later I flew out to Geneva with a 50m climbing rope in same rucsac. No one batted an eyelid. On the way back GVA security wouldn’t let it through. Not sure what they thought I was going to do with it. Their explanation was that it wasn’t valid as cabin baggage.

The local agent kindly took it across the apron and put it in the hold as they were loading up.

A man has been found guilty of possession of explosives with intent to endanger life or property after a pipe bomb was found in his hand luggage at Manchester Airport.

Nadeem Muhammad, 43, sobbed in the dock at Manchester Crown Court after the jury returned its verdict on Tuesday.

The device was later passed to counter terrorism police and, when examined by experts on 8 February, found to be a “potentially viable” bomb containing nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/manchester-airport-pipe-bomb-nadeem-muhammad-guilty-plot-hand-luggage-check-terrorism-a7882706.html

I have a first aid kit that includes a pair of clothing scissors and a small victorinox pen knife. Its been in my hand luggage on multiple flights per year for several years.

No problems, which could be worring if your so inclined.

I wasn’t allowed to carry my full face helmet onto my flight as hand luggage at LGW because it ‘could be used as a weapon’ (it wouldn’t fit in my hold luggage and I wasn’t carrying any other hand luggage).

So a mate emptied out his duty free into his hand luggage and I squeezed the lid into the paper thin plastic bag which was straining at the seams and was just a full face helmet with a covering of plastic bag.

Yes sir, carry on. No problem.

Carried same lid back through Alicante airport with no bag. No problem.

Strange.

https://www.gov.uk/hand-luggage-restrictions/personal-items

They’re actually surprisingly relaxed about what you can take through (knives, scissors etc).