Weblog

Sunday October 01, 2006

Banning liquid on planes futile?

If it is not possible to detect liquids, without thoroughly searching every passenger (cf England earlier this year), what is the point of banning them, except to inconvenience people? Perhaps the exercise in England did achieve a goal, and with containers of liquids up to 100ml now allowed once more, perhaps they, at least, are on the road back to normality. The USA is still, however, stuck with the stupid mentality of all liquids must be banned (despite there being no credible threat.)

Of course the devil in me is curious about what is the most dangerous liquid to carry onto a plane. Something that explodes (or can be made to explode)? Something that creates fatal fumes (total replacement of cabin air can be achieved in about 5 minutes)? Or what about a dropped bottle of acid that eats its way through flooring and insulation around wires, as in Alien?

An end note to this, twice now on flights leaving the USA I've been lucky enough to be using metal cutlery on foreign airlines. I love it!