Engineering Acceptable Air Transportation Safety with a focus on preventing and reducing worst case scenarios( Was Full Body Scanning Necessary)

What we are doing now is playing on people's fears. Read.

Engineering Acceptable Air Transportation Safety with a focus on preventing and reducing worst case scenarios: "There is too much of a focus on perfecting air travel safety. The USA is spending about $6 billion each year on air travel security and the extra wait times from post-September 11 security procedures add another $8 billion ($50/hour for business and $15/hour for everyone else. Greater use of full-body scanners instead of metal detectors would very likely increase wait times and thus raise those costs. Poole says that getting a passenger through a full-body scanner takes about 30 seconds longer than through a metal detector.


Because driving is so much more dangerous than flying, the thousands of more people who took to the roads rather than the skies after September 11 led to more car accidents. Blalock estimated that from September of 2001 to October of 2003, the enhanced airport security led to 2,300 road fatalities that otherwise would not have occurred. If security delays were to lengthen again, a similar driving fatality effect could happen, Blalock says, as more travelers choose to drive to avoid the increased inconveniences of flying.

So you also have to consider the safety of the overall transportation situation, because more people driving means more fatalities. If we can make the worst case on the airplane the same as bus or train terrorism then that would be a reasonable level. We will not need to overprotect planes if we make buses or trains the targets.

"They placed about 80 grams of PETN's base material, pentaerythritol, near the 747's fuselage where Abdulmutallab was seated. Eighty grams of pentaerythritol contains about the same explosive power as a hand grenade, but lacks the the hot, sharp metal fragments of an actual grenade that cause so much damage. The BBC set up cameras and Wyatt set off the explosives.

In the BBC documentary, entitled "How Safe Are Our Skies," the controlled detonation of the explosives lasted a scant 0.94 milliseconds, but the results were clear to cameras. Shock waves rippled through the exterior aluminum skin of the aircraft like fat water drops of water hitting the surface of a smooth pond.

The metal was permanently bowed out, and a handful of rivets were punched out, but no gaping holes appeared. The pressurized air inside the cabin would have slowly leaked out of the missing rivets, said Joseph, a non- life-threatening situation. The amount of explosives was "nowhere near enough" to bring down the plane, concluded Wyatt and Joseph