Supposedly the fertlizer wasn’t even combustible. And the M-88 firecrackers were taped to the outsides of the propane tanks and the locker containing the non-combustible fertlizer.
Sounds like something that would go fizzle and pop but not have a serious explosion.
I seem to remember Mythbusters having a more difficult time trying to get gas cans and propane tanks to explode. Firecrackers just don’t seem like they would do it.
If the two red plastic jugs of gasoline were large enough to heat one of the propane tanks to the point of bursting you could have a nice fireball. A two second bath of fire from vaporized gasoline probably wouldn’t do it. You’d want a steady heat source.
Just want to point out that even if the propane tanks wouldn’t have exploded, the man who readied them might not have known that. A lot of people think that propane tanks are just bundles of TNT waiting to explode. I’ll admit, even I was surprised when I saw on the Discovery Channel that a gas tank of a car that’s shot with a firearm is far more likely to just start leaking gas than it is to explode.
This is the result of the insidious effect over time of movies and TV depicting sensational events that have no basis in fact. A leaking gas tank just wouldn’t sell movie tickets 
And it seems kind of unlikely that a car-fire would last very long in Times Square before someone put it out. Plus one hopes that people wouldn’t stand close enough to a burning car to get caught in any eventual fireball.
I guess in the worst case scenario it might’ve caught a first responder or two. But I think what actually happened was the most likely thing by far. The car starts smoking, someone notices and calls the cops and they put it before it manages to damage the propane tanks, assuming the tanks could’ve been damaged by such a fire at all.
Not really questioning the legitimacy of the perp’s intentions (well maybe)…more of a question of their intelligence.
From a NY Times article on the incident:
From various descriptions in the media, it sounds like it was put together by an amateur, possibly crazy, rube whose experience with improvised explosives is limited to watching Rambo movies.
Nonetheless, I’m glad I decided against going to see a movie on Saturday.
From the reports I’ve seen, it seems that the “bomb” wouldn’t be able to do much damage at all, even in the worst case scenario. Basically, it would burn real good for a while. If the propane tanks burst, you’d also have a big fireball, but it would take a lot of heat before that happened. Most likely they’d just rupture a safety valve, and you’d have a handful of crude gas burners adding to the fire.
So… no immediate danger unless you were leaning on it when the fire started. And once the fire got going, it’d only be a hazard to people standing really close. Even the worst-case fireball would only be dangerous in a pretty limited radius.
Ever see a car burn? I was driving home from college one day (many years ago) and the car in front of me quickly pulled off of the road and people started jumping out of it. I pulled over to see if they needed help. They had some sort of electrical fire and the interior of the car was quickly filling with smoke. They got all of their books and things out of the car, but the car went from “gee that’s a bunch of smoke” to “holy crap the entire car is engulfed in flame!” in a surprisingly short amount of time, and this car did not have propane and gasoline tanks inside of it.
I don’t know how quickly the fire department can get a truck to Times Square, but that car could have gone up very quickly if the bomb had been designed a bit better. A few people nearby with fire extinguishers wouldn’t have been able to do much. I guess we should be thankful that the bomb designer apparently didn’t do a very good job.
My first theory is that is was a decoy, with some other crime planned while everyone was busy, such as a jewelry store robbery or something… But it doesn’t seem to have happened that way.
It’s handy that Mythbusters just ran an episode which blew up some propane tanks (real good).
With the pressure relief valve in place, they got a modest flame thrower effect out the valve. Nasty, but something that wouldn’t hurt a bystander smart enough to have walked away when the SUV caught fire. Might hurt a responder who was nosing around at the wrong time.
With the pressure valve defeated, the tanks exploded, sending out serious shrapnel. But no fireball. The explosion blew out the fire they had lit underneath the can. In a burning car, the explosion might not blow out all the fire, so there could be a 1-2 effect. Boom with shrapnel, then a 2nd whoosh when the vapor ignited. The later would be pretty but not as nasty as the first. It took them around 8 minutes, IIRC, to get the boom heating the tank over a propane (!) stove. Plenty of time to clear things out.
(The Build Team also did some tests trying to turn the tanks into rockets, but not relevant here.)
The firecrackers indicate a complete idiot. (In fact, the firecrackers gave it away as not being a mere car fire.) The tanks would have only blown quickly if something else really big went boom first, but then why bother with the tanks at all? Just go with the first thing.
Hopefully Tripler will pass by this thread.
Bolding mine.
Sounds like the perp was trying to build a giant version of the ‘flaming bag of dog poop’ joke.
Been done. No explosion. Minor damage. Few people burned.
So not that credible except that the people who are scared of the evil terrorists have another reason to hide under the bed.
This wasn’t Al Qida.
This was some mental case.
As I said in the other thread, Miracle Gro isn’t the best explosive in the world.
Considering you aren’t anywhere near New York (you’re in Tennessee, IIRC) and are highly unlikely to have such certain knowledge of the actual facts, my personal advice to you is to refrain from making any such statements anywhere. I’m assuming you made this statement carelessly and not in a deliberate attempt to spread disinformation.
Bosda leads a secret double life as an Al Qaida disinformation officer.
It all makes sense now.
How do you know it was disinformation? That’s as much an assumption on your part as **Bosda **was making. Frankly, from what I’m hearing his assumption makes much more sense than the opposite.
[Moderating]
Let’s stick to the question in the OP, rather than speculating on the motives of the bomber. If you want to speculate, you can do so in IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator