
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 16, 1994                   TAG: 9402160031
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Short

U.K. DEVELOPS BOMBPROOF AIR CONTAINER

A British defense contractor has developed a baggage container it says can withstand a blast equal to the one that destroyed a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.

Royal Ordnance already has replicated the Lockerbie bomb for trials using the hulls of 747s, company spokesman Andrew Jeacock said.

A controlled explosion in one of the new containers produced only three popped rivets on the aircraft's body. "The container slows down the effect of the explosion by four times," Jeacock said.

Royal Ordnance, which sent the containers to London's Heathrow Airport on Monday for loading tests, said they could be fitted in some airplanes by the end of the year.

The company began developing the containers after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground.

Jeacock said the force of a blast is vented through the material of the new container, with additional pressure absorbed by the container's hollow base.

"The interior of the baggage container becomes slightly spherical" in a blast, he said. Jeacock refused to discuss the nature of the material.

by CNB