I did a little research and discovered that there actually has been a successful terrorist attack on a plane using mostly liquid explosives, Korean Air Flight 858:
Two explosives were used: C4 and about twice as much PLX (a binary liquid explosive) as C4, totaling about 1kg of explosives. The bomb was powerful enough to take down the plane and cause the deaths of all 115 passengers. I suspect C4 was used as a component in order to ensure that the PLX was detonated, because it appears to be a tricky explosive to set off with just a blasting cap.
Regardless, the critique that is being leveled against the TSA is not that such an attack could be successful, but rather that the methods being used to thwart such an attack are wholly ineffectual, with the side effect of causing a great deal of inconvenience, wasting a massive amount of effort, and providing a distraction from more robust methods of solving the security problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_858
Two explosives were used: C4 and about twice as much PLX (a binary liquid explosive) as C4, totaling about 1kg of explosives. The bomb was powerful enough to take down the plane and cause the deaths of all 115 passengers. I suspect C4 was used as a component in order to ensure that the PLX was detonated, because it appears to be a tricky explosive to set off with just a blasting cap.
Regardless, the critique that is being leveled against the TSA is not that such an attack could be successful, but rather that the methods being used to thwart such an attack are wholly ineffectual, with the side effect of causing a great deal of inconvenience, wasting a massive amount of effort, and providing a distraction from more robust methods of solving the security problem.