"Bulky bomb detectors crowd into California airports by Dec. 31"

Monday, September 23, 2002

Bulky bomb detectors crowd into state airports by Dec. 31
By Matthew Barrows
The Sacramento (CA) Bee


With a deadline for testing every bag for explosives only three months
away, state airport officials are wondering how they will squeeze an
array of bulky bomb-detection equipment into already crowded terminals.

Over the past year, the Transportation Security Administration, the new
federal agency responsible for airport safety, has purchased thousands
of detection machines it will distribute between now and Dec. 31.

The problem is that the best devices for the job are the size of
Dumpsters, can weigh 9 tons and will require structural changes at every
major airport, from rearranging ticketing areas to knocking out walls
and building additions.
 
At Sacramento International Airport, officials plan to place the new
equipment next to ticket counters, an arrangement that will transform
the layout of the terminals and radically change how passengers check
in.

In addition to receiving a boarding pass, passengers will watch as their
luggage is swabbed for explosive residue.

If an alarm sounds, the bags will be sent through one of the
Dumpster-sized detection machines, which give a three-dimensional view
of a bag's contents, similar to a hospital CT scan. If the problem is
not resolved, the bag will be searched by hand.

The result of this bag-by-bag approach, some say, will be long waits and
big headaches for passengers.

"If that's the case, the lines will be out the door and down the
sidewalk," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers
Association. Stempler's group is pushing for a system in which frequent
fliers undergo a less rigorous security check.

In the best of all worlds, said airport officials, time and money would
be available for massive structural changes so the bags could be checked
behind the scenes without interrupting passenger flow.

But William Wade, the TSA's security chief for Sacramento International,
said the ticket counter arrangement is the best solution the airport can
achieve by the end of the year.

"We're trying to make it as convenient as possible for passengers and
airline personnel," he said.

TSA consultants have been touring the country in recent months, offering
recommendations on how to rearrange airports. California's biggest
airports, including San Francisco International, will decide this week
how to accommodate the machinery. Drastic structural alterations have
been approved at other state airports.

Officials at John Wayne International will grab space in adjacent
parking garages to house a new $18 million baggage system that will
incorporate about a dozen explosives-detection machines.

City of Burbank leaders last week gave the green light to a $25 million
addition to the Hollywood-Burbank Airport that will hold detection
equipment and passenger screening areas.

The best setup, airport and security officials agree, would be similar
to one used in the San Francisco airport's international terminal.

The terminal has tractor trailer-sized machines that use the same
CT-scan technology as the Dumpster-sized models. In San Francisco, every
checked bag goes through the machines, which are part of the conveyor
belt system that takes luggage from the ticket counter to the sorting
area. If a machine flags a suitcase, it automatically is diverted to
another area and inspected more thoroughly.

Edward Gomez, the federal security director at San Francisco
International, said he'd like to run the entire airport that way. But,
he said, there's no way to retrofit new detection equipment into the
airport's older terminals by Dec. 31.

"That's what's driving our strategy at this point," Gomez said. "We have
to, by the end of the year, have the best system possible in place."

Starting last January, airports were required to check all bags for
explosives, either by detection machines, hand searches, bomb-sniffing
dogs or the most commonly used approach: matching each piece of checked
luggage to a passenger on board the airplane.

By the end of the year, however, all checked luggage must be tested with
high-tech equipment. Congress is considering extending the deadline by
six months for up to 40 airports that need to re-engineer terminals to
accommodate the equipment.

Most airports, including Sacramento International, plan to meet the
deadline by using a combination of devices that won't require dramatic
physical alterations, but that critics say will result in long lines.

At Sacramento International, the bulk of the luggage will be tested with
explosive trace detectors -- nicknamed "sniffers" -- that are small
enough to set up on a folding table. The sniffers have been used
randomly at passenger screening areas since Sept. 11.

The sniffers require a worker to swab the outside of a bag and then
insert the swab into a machine that analyzes it for trace amounts of
explosives. If the sniffer tests positive, workers will double-check the
bag with the CT devices.

The TSA has purchased 1,100 of the machines -- at about $1 million each
-- and has deployed 240. The agency has installed 1,300 sniffers, with
3,700 on the way.

But many, including some members of Congress, say the equipment will be
too slow and prone to mistakes and will have to be replaced. They say it
would make more sense to extend the deadline to allow for construction
of more ambitious -- and user-friendly -- setups.

Charles Slepian, a Portland, Ore.-based aviation security consultant,
said even the sophisticated CT equipment has drawbacks, most notably a
25 percent to 30 percent rate of false positive detections. Slepian said
that before the federal government spends billions on equipment and
airport renovations, it should develop a more foolproof technology.

TSA spokesman Dave Steigman, however, said the agency has been careful
to tailor the explosive-detection systems to individual airports. Most
of the nation's 429 passenger airports, he said, will have new detection
systems by year's end.

Said Steigman: "Contrary to what some people may think, the airports and
the TSA are not doing this in a blind fog."

Attached Photo:

Olympic Security Systems employee Karen L. Willhite inspects luggage by
hand after passing the bags through a scanning machine at Sacramento
International Airport's Terminal B. New bomb-detection equipment will be
installed by Dec. 31.

olympic.bmp