Bombs in flight -- Friday's false alarm not false

devices did, in fact, contain explosives. Up until that time, the discussion revolved around printer toner cartridges with wires, circuit boards and no explosives.

It is now widely known that there were two devices found, that did in fact contain the explosive PETN, and that they originated in Yemen. PETN is the same explosive material used in the failed Christmas, 2009 “underwear” bombing attempt. That attempt also had its genesis in Yemen.

There are many questions that are yet to be answered by the investigations into these events, but there is also a question for the news media as well. That question is how it was possible for so many information outlets to have such a central piece of information —  the presence of explosives — wrong.

One possible explanation may be in the sequence of events as they unfolded Friday.

Associated Press reports Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas DeMaiziere said that the German National Police had received a tip that a suspicious package was on a freight flight from Yemen to a UPS hub at Germany’s Cologne-Bonn airport. By the time, however, the police obtained the information, the plane had departed for the U.K.

German intelligence then advised their British counterparts, and when the flight arrived at East Midlands airport, it was sequestered, a cordon was placed around it, and it was searched. Nothing was found, and the flight was cleared and placed back into the traffic’s flow.

At the same time that U.K. officials were conducting their search, officials in Dubai were searching the cargo of a passenger flight from Doha, Qatar. The Dubai officials discovered the bomb, and contacted British officials, who immediately sequestered the aircraft and again searched the plane.

This time, armed with information from Dubai as to how the explosive was packed and concealed to prevent detection by X-ray scanning, British investigators were able to locate and remove the device from the aircraft.

The British-found device had traveled on cargo flights only, but the bomb found by Dubai officials had actually been carried on two different passenger flights. The first was from Yemen into Doha, where the package was transferred to another passenger aircraft and flown into Dubai.

There is conflicting information as to the control and detonation of the bombs. Some reports describe it as having a sophisticated trigger capable of detonating at altitude, or after a specified amount of time. Other information indicates that the frequent routing changes would make such triggering useless, since there is no way for the bombers to know when or where the aircraft would be in the air at any given moment.

We will undoubtedly find our more in the days ahead.