The list of ingredients needed to build a bomb powerful enough to blow an airliner out of the sky seems innocuous, the court heard.

When Abdulla Ahmed Ali, allegedly a key planner in the airline plot, was arrested in August 2006 he had flight plans in his right pocket and a bomb blueprint in his left pocket.

His list included the soft drinks Lucozade and Oasis, mouthwash, batteries and cameras, according to the prosecution.

He had also written a series of instructions for getting his “deadly cargo” past airport security. One entry in the notebook read: “Dirty mag to distract. Condoms.”

The alleged plotters were also to carry another drinks bottle which they could sip from so as not to arouse suspicion.

Peter Wright, QC, said the main explosive component was hydrogen peroxide. The chemical has many legitimate uses but when mixed with other organic materials it could become highly explosive.

In this case, he alleged, the peroxide was to be blended with Tang, a powder with a high sucrose content used to make a fruit-flavoured soft drink.

Another entry in the notebook read: “Check time to fill each bottle. Check time taken to dilute in HP . . . Calculate exact drops of Tang, plus colour. Make in HP.”

The plotters had intended, Mr Wright said, to drill a hole in the bottom of the drinks bottle and empty its contents. The bottle would then be refilled with the hydrogen peroxide and Tang mixture, using a syringe. The bottom of the bottle would be sealed with a blob of superglue.

Mr Wright said that by draining and refilling the soft drinks bottles through the bottom, the conspirators would leave the seal intact giving the impression it had never been opened.

He said that the mixture of Tang and hydrogen peroxide was “capable of making an energetic mixture which can be detonated”.

The charge would then be set off by a high-explosive detonator, allegedly made of hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD), an explosive which has been used in previous attacks. A key ingredient for it can be found in solid-fuel camping tablets.

The HMTD was to be inserted in the casing of an AA 1.5v battery and the explosion initiated by another power source, possibly a disposable camera.

Mr Wright said that the bombs would have been easily assembled from the component parts and would have the capability of being detonated with devastating consequences.

“The devices were to be smuggled on to the aircraft and detonated in flight by a suicide bomber, a bomber prepared to lose his life in this way,” said Mr Wright.

“Inevitably such an event would also have fatal consequences for the various passengers and crew who happened quite by chance to be flying to North America on the day selected by them to commit this atrocity.”

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