You would not have thought of a commercial passenger aircraft as a weapon of mass destruction before 9/11. But a Boeing ER (extended range) aircraft can carry as much as 24,140 gallon or jet fuel. That's as much energy as eight tenths of a kiloton of TNT. The number could of people killed by 2 aircraft in NYC on 9/11 were more than those killed in Pearl Harbor.
Just this week, a tanker truck under I-95 with 8,500 gallons of fuel (see I-95 Overpass in Philadelphia -- How Did It Fail?) created a fire so hot it softened the steel beams and brought down 4 lanes of roadway. Only one fatality, though.
It's not the first time a tanker truck has caused big-time destruction. A tanker truck carrying 8,600 gallons of fuel crashed into the pylons of the Maze, a highway interchange in Oakland, Calif. The intense heat from the fire collapsed a section of a connector lane above.
The efficiency (most damage/least cost) with which tanker trucks can cause destruction cannot have escaped the attention of evil. Shouldn’t we act now to guard against tanker truck being used as WMDs?
Lest you despair of the impossibility of guarding a commodity of which there is too much to guard, consider another commodity that has been guarded even more zealously: money. Armored cars are the standard method of conveyance of large amounts of money. But with money, drivers and guards are trained to prevent the vehicle from being hijacked. They are carefully screened and carry firearms. An armored car could crash into a concrete wall at full speed and not lose a single dollar bill. A tanker truck, by comparison, is like throwing an egg against a wall.
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