Each day across Canada, airport security personnel are hard at work keeping travelers safe from danger – especially deliberate explosions. So how did a bomb end up on a 727 and get detonated without anyone finding out?

It was all part of a recent large-scale research experiment at an NRC Aerospace facility in Ottawa! With all necessary safety precautions in place, a bomb – hidden in a laptop – was set off in the rear cargo hold of a decommissioned Boeing 727 passenger jet.

City of Ottawa and Ottawa airport fire crews were on hand during the test.

NRC, along with several Canadian companies who specialize in technologies to help manage disasters and high-risk security situations collaborated in this unique experiment. It was a first-ever Canadian event – the deliberate detonation of an explosive inside a pressurized aircraft.

But why blow up a perfectly good airplane?

This one-of-a-kind event brought together many Canadian research companies, giving them rare opportunity to show their technologies to groups that are first on the scene during a disaster, such as the RCMP, fire and police services, and the Department of National Defence. Testing their technologies together allowed them to explore how their products could be integrated to further reduce the chance of an emergency situation and to arm responders with effective tools.

On scene for the detonation was everything from a bomb-sniffing robot to a "disaster in a suitcase" kit that fits in the trunk of a car and can be set up within minutes to provide voice, video and data communication via satellite. "We in industry have a whole range of expertise that can assist police departments and other first responders around the world." says Bob Smith, Defence and Security Representative for Frontline Robotics, whose robotic technology was featured as part of the experiment.

Also on display was a specialized speed bump that scans the license plates of cars entering a secure area and checks them against a database of approved vehicles, and a demonstration of a laser mapping technology that quickly created a 3-D scale model of the debris field. "You can see the complete scene," says Constable Jean Vermette of the RCMP. "It gives you more detail than a normal digital picture, and it's a faster way to safely pass information out of the scene to the criminal investigator, who would look for suspects."

Did I just see R2D2?

One of the stars of the day was a small R2D2-like robot equipped with sensors to scan for bombs in the cargo or passenger compartment of a plane. The robots, from Frontline Robotics, will be used to enhance security at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.  

A security robot performs a simulated "sniff" of luggage to check for explosives. These unique robots will be part of the security measures for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

So what now...

With the test completed, NRC Aerospace will study the damaged plane to learn about the types of fractures caused by explosions as opposed to regular wear and tear – knowledge that could help in future accident investigations. "If we are ever asked to help determine whether an explosive device was involved in the loss of an aircraft, we'll now have something to refer to," says Ron Gould, the NRC Aerospace technical officer who organized this test.

And at the end of the day of testing, everyone was able to benefit from each other's successes. "Everyone was using each other's technology to multiply their effect," says Gould.  "It was tremendous."