This is some impressive footage. Richard Reid may be a crackpot but whoever designed his device certainly wasn't.

video

Fake. Well, not entirely. The video has the Max X logo thing, I remember the episode. It's testing stronger luggage containers for airliners.

Holy shit, that's made me scared of flying!

Weakling... If you're that easily scared you deserve to die.

He sensitized PETN-based Semtex/PBX with acetone peroxide... there's a reason he wasn't wearing the shoes himself.

Wow, whoever designed that thing certainly knew what they were doing and how to get it done. Though why all that effort and using a fuse? Wouldn't an e-det be better, or would that be picked up by metal detectors?

Oh joy here’s another: "here’s a bomb we made as evidence, its not the same bomb but look how pretty and incriminating it is!"

Well maybe its exactly the same explosive this time. But I still think that they try to blow things like these out of proportion to please the public and the media.

Of course I still think all those cunts should be hung.

Metal detector, as well as size constraints. Terrorists aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed on the individual pawn basis, and matches are real simple, inconspicuous, and if they didn't work, the shoes are flame-sensitive. Lighters or other replacements are abound.

It's kind of interesting that, in the U.S., the report was that the terrorists had devised a way to sensitise Primacord so that it could be detonated with a match. I thought at the time "Really? That's quite a trick." I heard later that the trick was to fold the AP into the Semtex and detonate the AP with visco. The Tamil Tigers have used similar devices many times. Remember that the plane is also pressured; the device didn't blow up an airliner, just ruptured the skin.

bloody hell im surprised they didn't go off just by walking around

unless he walked slow

which would look really suspicious