[Jim Noble]

I thought the most interesting part of this story was the explanation (finally) of what the shoe bombs are for.

They are cockpit breaching devices.

[Dog]

They are cockpit breaching devices.

Bingo.

[Magnum44]

They are cockpit breaching devices

Interesting. One has to wonder if the CONOP for this is to leave the shoe on during detonation or plant the shoe and barefoot it out of the blast zone. With these islamist wackos, one could never tell.

[Stonewall Jackson]

After they revealed this info about the shoe bombs, I have to wonder if there might have been other terrorists on Richard Reed's flight, or was he just a test to see if they could sneak the shoe bombs through security.

[gondramB]

"I thought the most interesting part of this story was the explanation (finally) of what the shoe bombs are for.

They are cockpit breaching devices."

Agreed.. that was never clear to me before.

What I still don't understand is why is this story breaking now - what happened to make the president reveal it now.

[fiftymegaton]

In this case maybe the shoe bombs were planned to be used to breach the cockpit but if I remember correctly Richard Reid was still sitting in his seat while attempting to detonate his shoe bomb. Which means he wasn't exactly too worried about breaching the cockpit.

[Coop]

I thought the most interesting part of this story was the explanation (finally) of what the shoe bombs are for. They are cockpit breaching devices.

That's not how Reid tried to use his. I imagine their uses could be tailored based on the amount of explosives and potentially shaped charges.