UK paper says it is easy to smuggle chemicals for a bomb on an airplane

London, Feb.26 : The aviation industry in Britain has called improving security at airports following a Telegraph report that said that smuggling components needed to make a bomb onto a plane in Britain is easy.

According to the report, a television documentary team said it had made a bomb by mixing a series of odourless and colourless chemicals that could be brought into an aircraft by passengers. The liquids that were mixed to make the explosive cocktail were all contained in bottles of less than 100ml, which is the limit enforced at most airports around the world at present and was introduced shortly after British authorities thwarted an alleged attempt to blow up transatlantic aircraft in August 2006.

Researchers for Channel 4's Dispatches programme used a commercial detonator to explode their "bomb" at Lasham airfield, Hants.

It blew a gaping hole in a decommissioned aircraft, snapping the ribs of the fuselage.

Were this to have happened in mid-air, the documentary makers claimed, the pilot would have lost control of the aircraft.

The claims by the documentary makers fly in the face of tests carried out by the American authorities in 2006.

They claimed a viable bomb could not be made if a 100ml limit was imposed on individual containers of liquids and their findings led to the standardisation of restrictions across much of the world.

Since then, more sophisticated hand luggage screening equipment has been introduced at a number of British airports.

Critics say without passenger profiling - trying to identify potential terrorists before they board - such precautions are inadequate.

ANI