Airport security is doomed to fail in preventing terrorist attacks. Unless they want us to fly naked and possibly even then get an X-ray and proctologist exam before boarding, there is no way they can prevent nasty things from happening.



We are currently forced into placing our toiletries (gels, perfume, shaving cream) into a small clear plastic bag, presumably because the small clear plastic bag will contain the brutal force of a liquid explosive going off inside it. Actually, the explosion would not be that spectacular, as The Register explained.

I happened to travel to London from Barcelona on the 20th, but on flight BA477, the early morning one - had I picked the later flight at 11 AM, BA478, I would have been on one of the aircraft contaminated with Polonium-210. On the way back that afternoon, we flew out of Gatwick, as the Heathrow flight was full…which happened to be BA479, also a contaminated flight. Near-miss on both trips.
Polonium-210 is a highly radioactive substance, but which emits alpha particles, which travel slow and cannot even penetrate the human skin. This makes it very difficult to detect, and since a dose of 1 milligram can kill a human, it is very easy to conceal and transport many lethal doses, for example, inside a pen. Delivery to a victim can be through water or food, inhalation, or an open wound. It’s unlikely a terrorist would start placing little pellets of Polonium in the food trays delivered during a flight, but he could empty one of the sub-100cc bottles he conveniently carried onboard in the clear plastic bag in the lavatory, a place likely visited by most passengers during a long flight.

The next obvious question is - how easy is it to obtain Polonium-210? Very easy, actually. Although it is a byproduct of nuclear reactors, United Nuclear sells license-exempt quantities to the general public. How easy is it to obtain Polonium-210 in toxic quantities? Not that easy - a lot of hype has been passed around the media regarding United Nuclear, but as their special note states, you would need to spend $1 million and order 15.000 samples to have a toxic amount of the stuff. Samples ordered are produced on demand at a reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.





We should not worry too much about getting a whiff of Polonium-210 on our next flight, but we should raise against the draconian “security” measures imposed by panels of would-be experts. We are not realizing that the terrorists are winning one battle, which is to make us live in fear and paranoia when the actual chances of dying in a terrorist attack are smaller than tripping over on the sidewalk and fatally hitting your head on the concrete. Maybe we should outlaw sidewalks…