3. Blowing Up the Casino
The FBI’s bomb squad used X-rays to examine the mechanism’s inner workings. It consisted of two steel boxes containing 1000 pounds of dynamite, perfectly balanced and leveled above trigger mechanisms. It was an extremely complicated and sophisticated piece of machinery, unlike anything that explosives disposal experts had ever seen before.
The bomb squad concluded that the device could not be safely removed, and had to be dismantled at the hotel. After studying the machinery for 30 hours, a C4 explosive-shaped charge was used in an attempt to disarm the bomb, but failed. The explosives went off, creating a five-story crater in the hotel.