Building Planes to Survive Bombs

Aug. 10, 2006 — -- While bombs and planes are clearly a lethal combination, there are numerous examples of passengers and airplanes surviving explosions in-flight.

"The idea that if you put a bomb onboard, automatically the aircraft is blown apart and everyone is killed is a myth," ABC News aviation expert John Nance said.

In 1972 an Israeli El Al flight sustained only minor damage when a bomb exploded in its reinforced cargo area on a flight from Rome to Tel Aviv.

Then in April 1986, TWA Flight 840 landed safely at Athens airport in Greece after a bomb was detonated onboard. Of the 114 people onboard, four died and only nine were wounded.

With the alleged London plot, terrorists planned to smuggle explosive gel concealed in sports drinks onto several planes headed to the United States and then detonate the homemade bombs in-flight.

The tactic might have had a similar outcome to that of the 1994 attack when Islamic radicals detonated a gel-type explosive aboard a Philippine Airlines flight over the Pacific. It blew a hole in the aircraft but failed to bring it down.

In those instances, there were a few factors that could have saved the plane from destruction.

"Either the bomb is not large enough to tear the plane apart, or if the bomb is not placed in a critical location like near a fuel system or the flight controls," security consultant Jeff Beaty said.

Planes are much stronger than many realize, with an exterior built to protect itself.

"Modern planes are designed so that the skin will stop peeling off," Nance said.

But generally speaking, the odds are very much against survival, the experts said.

"We are talking about an aluminum tube flying through the air at 500 miles per hour," Beaty said.

ABC News research found that since the first bomb was detonated on an airplane in 1933, at least 16 explosive devices on commercial aircraft have killed more than 1,400 people.