he arrived here on the flight from lagos, nigeria. nigerian flights tend to be those that authorities take interest in any way because of immigration, fraud and other such issues. he then transferred over a three-hour period to the northwest flight. he went through a metal detector, through the x-ray machine, or his bags did. but as they point out to me, larry, if he did have something on him such as we're hearing in his underwear or similar, that would not have been picked up by the metal detector. and, of course, no secondary search was required then. tonight, of course, we now also know that secondary searches are being introduced much more widely at airports around the world, larry. >> paul, is it obvious here somebody goofed? >> well, it's not absolutely clear, but there were a lot of red flags obviously this time around. the investigation will be starting right now, and a lot of soul searching will definitely be going on, larry. >> larry:or nick and paul and richard, stay with us. we'll be right back. smoo you can get a cc, jett

how it got from yemen to lagos to amsterdam and to detroit. at detroit, reporter frank holland.rank, what do you know? >> reporter: you can feel the tension here at detroit metro as people get dropped off and are waiting for holiday flight, a lot of people hearing about this incident a short time ago or hearing about it when they arrive here. what's being called an attempted terror attack happened at noon eastern time here in detroit. for about six hours, the 278 people on that plane were held here, interviewed by the fbi, the tsa and other federal agencies about what they saw, what they heard, what they might knowment we actually spoke to a number of those people. i spoke to one family from amsterdam myself. they say it was very terrifying. for minutes, first all they heard was a loud bang. then they saw flames. then they saw smoke. they say the man who is now the suspect, a 23-year-old nigerian man, actually lit himself on fire. they say they believe he hit his leg on fire. here's more firsthand accounts of what happened inside the cabin. >> right at the end of the flight when

he first got aboard a klm aircraft in lagos, nigeria. then he went to amsterdam.nderstand he was held in a sanitized area, in other words an area that would segregate him from the general population of the airport because he is transiting to another transatlantic flight. no screening. he is being held in this sanitized area. now from there to detroit. so what we're talking about is a possibility now, i'm saying a possibility, that the only screening this guy had was lagos, nigeria. give me a break, okay. if he did, in fact, get screened in -- >> larry: not screened in amsterdam? >> if he was screened in amsterdam, the screening was typical to what we do today. certainly he did not have what we call whole body image screening which is the only answer to this problem. >> larry: back with more after this. this is a honda pilot. and this is the chevy traverse. it has more cargo space than pilot. and traverse beats honda on highway gas mileage too. more fuel efficient and 30% more room. maybe traverse can carry that stuff too. now during the chevy red tag event, get an

gerian officials say abdulmallab returns to lagos for one y, on christmas eve, to boa the flight. he checks no bags, and pses through security. he aives in amsterdaon christmas y. the dutch inrior minister says nothing seems iss before he boards northwest flight 25for detroit. >> ( translated the suspect did not leave the customs ar schiphol during his transfe hepent the usual transfer timea couple of hours as per the norm, in the airport's internationalounge. as p protocol, he had to pass a curity gate within the customs areat schiphol, a metal detector, and this presented no irregularitie >> reporter: hours ler, abdulmutallab's flight was on final proach to detroit, when he allegedly tried to set f the bomb and was overpowered now, as he sits in a feral prison in michan, his ties to yemen and its gring al-qaeda presen have come under intense new scrutiny today, security forcestormed an al-qaida de-out along yemen's weern coast, and arrested at let one suspect. and the deputynterior minister declared h government "will continue its strikes against the grp until it is totally elim

he was screened in lagos. he was screened in amsterdam. if the united states authorities had not sent information from their watch list back down the line to the airports in those various places, why would they have thought to do a second research on him? there has to be a reason. unless of course, as we've now moved to the new situation, larry, where everyone is being patted down and everyone's hand baggage is being opened up. but that is creating delays. i can tell you flights today from britain to the u.s., some of them left three or four hours late. >> larry: you're familiar with watch lists. can you break down how they work or how they don't work? >> larry, with watch lists we are entering the twilight zone. the fact is 500,000 people on one list, tens of thousands on another, and a few thousand on the famous no-fly list. the crucial part is not how you get on them but how you get off them because remember, there are many americans who are on one or other of these lists who are desperate to try and get off them. this is all about a ba

. >> larry: if you have one country that is lax -- >> in this particular case i would say lagos was thek link in this system. >> larry: there's a hearing in michigan. the federal government will seek a dna sample from the government. for what reason do you think? >> larry, the dna can tell them -- trace where he habben possibly. does he have any other connections. forensic evidence would be gathered every place this guy was. does he have a cell phone? check all locations he's talking to. science is a big help for us in the 21st century, and certainly it's going to overcome or these myriad of different links that we have to look at. so, you know, where has he been? who has he met? his apartment, what we gathered there on any computer evidence that we could get, any other kind of leads that this guy has come in contact through over the last month or two. >> jack, what do you make of the yemen connection? >> obviously, it's a big concern. when we think about al qaeda, one of our other guests mentioned this the real problem al qaeda has there's not one ability to say i take out that leader

the fact it's happened to me and many other people, it's somewhat shocking this wasn't done in lagos amsterdam or anyplace else. that's with everything we have in place right now. >> larry: harvey, do you agree with tom ridge that we get a little lax. >> i certainly agree with him. more importantly what this former secretary said, which i think is key, he talked about culture. i could tell you this, larry. there are different cultures within the different agencies that need to cooperate with each other and you get data immediately to the actual data. larry johnson worked with the agency and with dhs in which we had information. even if we had 500,000 pieces of information. shifting it back and forth between agencies and getting it to tsa or local law enforcement or state law enforcement is a monumental effort. i can tell you, larry, working with local law enforcement, we don't get real time data quickly enough from so-called feds. so i think that really is the issue, and i don't think whatever the president said will rectify that situation. >> larry: larry, do you agree with what tom

he boarded the pla in lagos a cleared securit there as well as in amsterdamhere the flight made stop-ove the jet was on fin approach to detro when abdulmutaab aegedly tried to ignite explosives concealednder his clothing. authorities said he used a syringeo inject triggering chemicals into a smallag crystal even explosive knn as pn. instead of blowingp, the bag simply caught fire then pasngers and crew subdued the suspect. abdulmutallab was treated for bur and sent to a low-securityederal pli son in michigan, aut 45 miles south ofetroit. on sunday heland secury secretary defened the govnment's handling of the case. the system worked. everybo played an important le here. the passengers and crew of the flight took aropriate action. within literally an hour to 90 minutes ofhe incident occuing, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to te some special measuresn light of what had occurred on the northwest airlines fligt. >> ifill: but by this mning napolitano did concede tt system failure. >> i don't any think secretary of homeland security wouldsit before y to say she was happy that so

he had a one-way ticket from lagos to amsterdam and amsterdam to detroit. he checked no bags, carrying just a small backpack. the suspect's banker dad had warned the u.s. embassy in november that his son had become radicalize and had mean a danger. the ongoing assault on al qaeda in yemen, including two massive rounds of air strikes at terrorist leaders, should have heightened vigilance for revenge. and they also write here in "the daily news," an al qaeda operative in yemen made an online video december 21 threatening the u.s. for revenge on the air strikes, saying, "we are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of god." and a look at the suspect from "the daily news." am illinois, good morning to phillip on our independent line s. more airport -- good morning to you, phillip. go ahead. caller: happy new year, sir. this is such a complicated course here. as far as more security at the airports, granted, it could be a little bit more secure, a little bit like i've heard the zearls, it's like a four-hour wait to get on a plane compared to america. they say two h

umar had a one-way ticket from lagos to amsterdam and amsterdam to detroit.e checked no bags carrying just a small back pac. the suspect's banker dad had warned the u.s. embassy in november that his son might be a danger. the ongoing assault on al-qaeda in yemen including two massive rounds of air strikes and terrorist leaders should have heightened vigilance for revenge, and a an al-qaeda operative in yemen made an online video december 21st threatening the u.s. for revenge on the air strikes saying, quote, we are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of god. and a look at the suspect from the daily news in new york. good morning to phillip on our independent line, is more -- good morning, phillip, go ahead. >> caller: happy new year, sir. jeez, this is such a complicated course here. as far as more security at the airports, granted it could be a little bit more secure, i guess, a little bit more like i've heard the israelis, it's like a four-hour wait to get on a plane compared to america they say two hours. so i think they're a little bit more strict on their