Study: Abdulmutallab's bomb wouldn't have brought down the plane

However, experts said the alleged Islamist terrorist and the passenger next to him would have died, while other passengers would have suffered ruptured ear drums…

The same amount of the explosive pentaerythritol (or PETN) allegedly carried by Mr Abdulmutallab was placed to mirror the location where he was sitting on the plane.

Captain J Joseph, an air accident investigator, and Dr Wyatt both concluded that the quantity of explosive used was nowhere near enough needed to rupture the skin of a passenger plane.

Dr Wyatt told the BBC: ‘If it was a more rigid material then we might have seen a crack or breakthrough but this is actually quite a flexible material.