Terror Alerts - Attempted Terror Attack on NWA Flight 253

12/28/2009 December 27, 2009 - A passenger on the Christmas day Northwest Airlines 253 flight attempted to detonate a bomb but failed.  The 23 year old suspect, Nigerian national, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab managed to sneak expolsives including PETN, a commercial form of plastic explosives, and a small amount of a liquid explosive to be used as an ignitor through security in Amsterdam, where the flight originated.  Abdulmutallab was on a U.S. Goverment Terrorist watch list after his father placed a call to the US embassy in Nigerian concerned about his extremist views.  His position on this watch list did not subject him to "no-fly", secondary screening or suspend his visa.  Many officials are calling this failed terroist attack a systematic failure in the security screening processes used in air-travel.  Any of a number of technologies currently in use at airports could have detected this device before it made it onto a plan.