Word: oxley
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...trigger the powdered explosive that was sewn into his underwear and smuggled on board. And it turns out that pulling off such an explosion on a plane is no simple feat. "It's a bit more complicated than just putting a flame to the powder," says Jimmie Carol Oxley, the director of the Center of Excellence in Explosives Detection, Mitigation, Response and Characterization at the University of Rhode Island at Kingston. (See pictures of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab...
...shoe bomber Richard Reid tried to use PETN to destroy a plane over the Atlantic in 2001, and the Saudi Arabian government has reported that the chemical was used in a thwarted assassination attempt on the country's counterterrorism chief in August. "It's a nice high explosive," says Oxley...
...done correctly, the primer explosion could have set off the PETN, which might have blown a hole in the side of the plane. "It looked like he was trying to use a chemical initiation, and that takes a lot of pre-experimentation to find out what would work," says Oxley. "He succeeded in getting a fire, but that was it." (Read "Napolitano's Gaffe: Did the System Really Work...
...puffer" machines, which blow air on passengers to collect residue, might have detected the PETN, it's not certain, and many airports lack the machines. "There's always room for improvement in airport security, but it's always going to be a trade-off between convenience and commerce," says Oxley. In the meantime, we may have to count on what worked on Flight 253: luck...
...received more calls from large financial firms in the past few months. Nonetheless, Bliss says the most troubled banks may have a tough time finding willing and able directors. He says it's harder today to find people to serve on corporate boards, in part because Sarbanes-Oxley has increased the work that board members must do. But Bliss says the biggest thing that keeps people from serving on a bank board is the social risk. "No one wants to be seen as part of the group that is handing out bonuses," says Bliss. "Not something you want to have...