A tiny threat

The arrest of four men planning to blow up fuel containers at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport is a real threat. Wait, let me restate that: a really tiny threat.

Yes, these four men were planning something awful. Unfortunately, they had little chance of success. They apparently did little actual preparation, and they had almost no resources among them. Conspicuously absent is any help from a group like Al Qaeda, someone who might have given them the technical and financial support needed to succeed.

In fact, a Justice Department official called them "Al Qaeda wannabees." If the Justice Department isn't willing to claim that it has made a major arrest, you're dealing with the smallest of potatoes. On the face of it, they seem to be a few acquaintances with a common axe to grind about the United States and Israel--not exactly a resurrection of the Atta cell.

Who knows, in spite of their lack of skill, expertise, or resources, they might have blown up a fuel tank. However, airports are designed to deal with these sorts of emergencies, which can happen without the help of terrorists. Airport personnel are well-trained for these sorts of exigencies, particularly in containing the destruction. In fact, JFK might not even close, in some cases, if the damage were fairly small.

It's worth taking people like this cell of "Al Qaeda wannabees" seriously. It's a mistake to take them too seriously.

Comments

[anon]

Last year, London Heathrow's fuel farm had a catastrophic failure in the form of an explosion and uncontained fire. Total fatalities: zero. Severe disruption to airline operations, however, as LHR was forced to severely ration available fuel. Many flights took off from Heathrow with minimal fuel and topped up at other nearby airports before starting their main route. As a terrorist strategy, blowing up airport fuel farms is pretty ineffective at causing mass loss of life.

[Alex]

"Severe" it wasn't - not compared to, say, the BA check-in agents' strike the year before, or "SELECT FROM security scares WHERE impact="long queues". Not many flights were actually cancelled.

It wasn't the airport tank farm, but a fuel depot that supplies many customers including LHR. Heathrow's tankfarm can receive fuel by pipeline from Buncefield (the one that exploded) and also from Fawley refinery on the south coast, and also has rail loading facilities which usually make up about 15 per cent of total fuel delivery. In the crisis this was radically ramped up.

Other mitigation included not only sending off aircraft with reduced fuel states to tank up elsewhere, but also tankering - that is, uplifting all fuel conformable with the loadsheet down-route and taking it with you. For most shorthaul routes, you can tanker enough fuel to get to London and then on to the next destination.

[Steven Taylor]

But, they were terrorists and the US government foiled a terrorist plot--you are just muddying the waters by pointing out that they were basically a group of guys with delusions of grandeur.