How the Rise of Electronics Has Made Smuggling Bombs Easier
New restrictions on flights from the Middle East reflect how just about anything with power can be turned into an explosive.
Last February, a Somali man boarded a Daallo Airlines flight in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. Twenty minutes after the flight took off, the unassuming laptop in his carry-on bag detonated, blowing a hole in the side of the plane. The bomber was killed, and two others were injured. But if the aircraft had reached cruising altitude, an expert told CNN, the bomb would have ignited the plane’s fuel tank and caused a second, potentially catastrophic blast.
The Daallo explosion was one of a handful of terrorist attacks that the Department of Homeland Security cited to help explain.
