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Last year, the government posed a question for scientists: Could a computer program show how bombs might rip through jets?

Today, that question is answered. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque have created the first computer model that simulates a bomb blowing up a passenger plane. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is hoping that it will be an improvement from the traditional method of testing airplanes by blowing up actual bombs in retired jets.

The tests could lead the TSA to ease or tighten the amount of liquids passengers can carry on airplanes, agency spokesman Christopher White said. “We can make any number of potential changes based on the results,” White said. “It could affect the amount of any given item we allow on board. It could affect our prohibited-items list.”

At the same time, the TSA is looking at doing separate blast tests on regional jets. Those planes are smaller than 737s and 757s and easier to blow up, said aviation-security consultant Glen Winn, a former United Airlines security chief. The TSA recently disclosed that it may need to modify airport bomb scanners so they can better protect the 19- to 70-seat planes, which carry about 300,000 passengers a day.

Regional jets do not face immediate danger because baggage scanners should catch potentially lethal bombs, Winn said. But if a bomb exploded on a regional jet, the plane is “more vulnerable than a large airplane,” Winn said. “A small explosion on a small aircraft is going to be nearer to the critical parts of the airplane.”

Raul Radovitzky, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics associate professor and blast expert, noted that regional jets have thinner skins, smaller skeletons and narrower cabins. Those features mean that a small bomb that could be absorbed by a 737 might destroy a regional jet, Radovitzky said.

The TSA…

More: continued here

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