Bomb defusal squads in the United States are trained to deal with textbook bombings: one device, found before it detonates. April’s Boston marathon bombing was anything but a textbook case. Brian Castner used to be an explosive ordnance disposal officer for the US Air Force, leading bomb disposal units in Iraq. In an illuminating piece for Wired, he uses his experience to explain the Boston bomb squad’s darkest day, why bomb squads were trained to find one nuke at a Super Bowl (not multiple pressure cookers in backpacks), and how that training will change in the future.
The Boston bombings through the eyes of the bomb squad
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