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IIRC terrorists using planes to attack buildings is a common threat scenario for infrastructure projects like nuclear power plants. However usually this refers

by hnbad 3y ago

IIRC terrorists using planes to attack buildings is a common threat scenario for infrastructure projects like nuclear power plants. However usually this refers to small civilian planes like Czesna. Not large passenger airliners like a Boeing 767. Let alone two of them.

marcosdumay 3y ago
> However usually this refers to small civilian planes like Czesna. Not large passenger airliners like a Boeing 767. That is a really odd thing to say on the context of security. If people did indeed have this rationale, I would be surprised at the obvious and absurd display of incompetence. A vulnerability is a vulnerability, and you expect the attacker to decide how much impact he will try to cause (with a bias into "a lot"). The part about 3 planes is reasonable (something at this level of organization should raise an alert somewhere).
tivert 3y ago
> IIRC terrorists using planes to attack buildings is a common threat scenario for infrastructure projects like nuclear power plants. However usually this refers to small civilian planes like Czesna. Not large passenger airliners like a Boeing 767. Honestly, that doesn't make any sense to me and I'm doubtful. I work at a company that had a data center (built pre-2001) 10 or 20 miles from an airport. It was built like a literal bunk because (IIRC) their threat model included "jet airliner crashes into datacenter" (no terrorism required). It looks like they were testing/modeling that scenario with nuclear power plants way back in 1988: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/us/threats-responses-reactor-vulnerability-experts-say-nuclear-plants-can-survive.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/us/threats-responses-reac...: > The 19 experts, many of them retired, work or worked at universities or companies that build or operate reactors. In an article on Friday in the journal Science, they dismiss fears voiced by opponents of nuclear power that the nation's reactors are vulnerable to a terrorist attack. > "We read that airplanes can fly through the reinforced, steel-lined 1.5-meter-thick concrete walls surrounding a nuclear reactor," the article says, "and inevitably cause a meltdown resulting in 'tens of thousands of deaths' and 'make a huge area uninhabitable for centuries,' to quote some recent stories." But, they add, "no airplane regardless of size, can fly through such a wall." > The article says the scenario "was actually tested in 1988 by mounting an unmanned plane on rails and 'flying' it at 215 meters per second (about 480 m.p.h.) into a test wall." The engines penetrated only about two inches and the fuselage even less, according to the article. Something with two engines at 480 mph is a jet, definitely not a Cessna-type general aviation plane.
- EdwardCoffin 3y ago
  I think this is a video from that test: Total Destruction: F4 Phantom Rocketed Into Concrete Wall At 500 MPH [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4wDqSnBJ-k&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4wDqSnBJ-k&t=0s
- sillywalk 3y ago
  I believe that shielding is for the reactor itself, and while the rest of the buildings are hardened, they aren't that hardened. I wonder if targeting the control building, or the transformers/electrical shit that connects to the grid with a jetliner would be more effective. Or maybe a shipyard with 'nuclear vessels'.

by hnbad 3y ago

marcosdumay 3y ago

> However usually this refers to small civilian planes like Czesna. Not large passenger airliners like a Boeing 767. That is a really odd thing to say on the context of security. If people did indeed have this rationale, I would be surprised at the obvious and absurd display of incompetence. A vulnerability is a vulnerability, and you expect the attacker to decide how much impact he will try to cause (with a bias into "a lot"). The part about 3 planes is reasonable (something at this level of organization should raise an alert somewhere).

tivert 3y ago

> IIRC terrorists using planes to attack buildings is a common threat scenario for infrastructure projects like nuclear power plants. However usually this refers to small civilian planes like Czesna. Not large passenger airliners like a Boeing 767. Honestly, that doesn't make any sense to me and I'm doubtful. I work at a company that had a data center (built pre-2001) 10 or 20 miles from an airport. It was built like a literal bunk because (IIRC) their threat model included "jet airliner crashes into datacenter" (no terrorism required). It looks like they were testing/modeling that scenario with nuclear power plants way back in 1988: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/us/threats-responses-reactor-vulnerability-experts-say-nuclear-plants-can-survive.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/us/threats-responses-reac...: > The 19 experts, many of them retired, work or worked at universities or companies that build or operate reactors. In an article on Friday in the journal Science, they dismiss fears voiced by opponents of nuclear power that the nation's reactors are vulnerable to a terrorist attack. > "We read that airplanes can fly through the reinforced, steel-lined 1.5-meter-thick concrete walls surrounding a nuclear reactor," the article says, "and inevitably cause a meltdown resulting in 'tens of thousands of deaths' and 'make a huge area uninhabitable for centuries,' to quote some recent stories." But, they add, "no airplane regardless of size, can fly through such a wall." > The article says the scenario "was actually tested in 1988 by mounting an unmanned plane on rails and 'flying' it at 215 meters per second (about 480 m.p.h.) into a test wall." The engines penetrated only about two inches and the fuselage even less, according to the article. Something with two engines at 480 mph is a jet, definitely not a Cessna-type general aviation plane.

EdwardCoffin 3y ago
I think this is a video from that test: Total Destruction: F4 Phantom Rocketed Into Concrete Wall At 500 MPH [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4wDqSnBJ-k&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4wDqSnBJ-k&t=0s
sillywalk 3y ago
I believe that shielding is for the reactor itself, and while the rest of the buildings are hardened, they aren't that hardened. I wonder if targeting the control building, or the transformers/electrical shit that connects to the grid with a jetliner would be more effective. Or maybe a shipyard with 'nuclear vessels'.