Security breach at Logan — ‘It’s Keystone Kops’

BostonHerald.com - Local & Regional: Security breach at Logan — ‘It’s Keystone Kops’: "Veteran aviation security specialists called the loss of a powerful Semtex plastic explosive device at Logan International Airport this week the result of “sloppy police work” by state troopers who should never have taken their eyes off the volatile material.

“It’s Keystone Kops,” said Bruce Schneier, an airport security and technology expert from California and the author of “Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World.”

“I mean, c’mon, people. If you’re going to run a security drill like this you can’t lose the explosive.”

The troopers say they did not notice when a Massport worker drove away in an agency truck to which 8 ounces of Semtex had been affixed as part of an effort to train bomb-sniffing K-9 dogs.

The lost explosive was thought to be somewhere along Harborside Drive, which is surrounded by a security fence and juts into an airfield near Runway 4L. But airplane traffic and airport operations were unhindered by the Semtex snafu, and safety expert Douglas Laird called that a good response.

Laird, former security director for Northwest Airlines, said Semtex is safe and most people would not know what it was if they found it. “It’s sloppy police work,” Laird said. “But it sounds like they handled it appropriately.”

“It’s extremely stable,” he said. “You could shoot it and it wouldn’t go off. You could burn it. To detonate it you need a blasting cap.” Laird said cases of lost explosives are more common as law enforcement works harder to train officers to handle the threat.

During Wednesday’s drill, a K-9 trooper put the Semtex on the rear bumper of a pickup truck parked in a Massport pool lot. Troopers have so far disassembled a street sweeper in the hope of finding it sucked into the device. Last night it remained as lost as luggage."