"Urns pose problems for Sky Harbor screeners"

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Urns pose problems for Sky Harbor screeners
By Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic


Cremated human remains may not seem like a national security threat, but
officials at Sky Harbor International Airport say passengers carrying
urns have become a sensitive hassle at checkpoints.

The problem: X-rays can't penetrate some urns, and screeners with the
Transportation Security Administration are not allowed to open the urns.
 
"It's definitely an emotional issue," noted Catherine Burnett, a
security agency liaison with commercial airlines here. "Aunt Bertha is a
part of their lives, and the air carriers are still having challenges
with it."

Nobody knows exactly how many loved ones are carried through airport
terminals, but agency officials say Southwest Airlines alone gets the
cremains of 60 bodies a day in Terminal 4 at the Phoenix airport. 

Metallic containers often fail the X-ray test, causing a bottleneck at
the checkpoint and more grief for a passenger who already carries a
burden of sorrow.

Officials say the mix-up is a convergence of two major trends: airport
security and human cremation.

Cremations in North America have tripled in the past three decades. In
Arizona alone, more than 42,000 people die each year. The Cremation
Association of North America reports that 57 percent of their corpses
are incinerated, and up to half of the cremains wind up getting flown
out of state.

"Nobody's from here," said Steve Murphy, manager at the Neptune Society
of Arizona. "The math is a little hard to work out, but it's very real."

Joe Livingston, funeral director at Hansen Mortuary in Phoenix, said
people want to carry a loved one's ashes onboard to make sure they reach
that final destination safely. "It's one thing to lose your underwear,"
he said. "It's another thing to lose an urn."

For airport screeners, that spells trouble. Up to one-third of urns are
made of bronze, copper, steel or lead-lined ceramic. The containers have
become a hitch in the post-Sept. 11 system.

In April, the TSA announced new rules for transporting urns on
commercial airlines, including a requirement that a container must pass
through the X-ray machine or it will not be allowed as a carry-on item.
Security screeners may not open a container, even if asked to do so by a
passenger. And, if the more powerful X-ray machine in baggage screening
cannot view contents, the container will be banned entirely from
commercial flights. 

Individual airlines have additional regulations that should be checked
before a flight. For example, Southwest Airlines does not accept
cremated remains as checked baggage, but allows carry-on urns if they
pass security screening. Southwest cargo flights require 48 hours notice
for the shipment of cremated remains, with detailed confirmation from a
crematorium.

Whether all those rules amount to extra grief for traveling mourners
seems to be a subject of dispute within the crematorium industry.

At Mariposa Gardens Memorial Park in Mesa, which has niches for 12,000
urns, general manager Jeanie Hendricks said, "We haven't heard of it
being a problem at this point."

Ditto for Jack Springer, executive director with the Cremation
Association of North America. And for Katie Monfre, a spokeswoman with
the National Funeral Director's Association. 

But Murphy of the Neptune Society said the regulations are an
aggravation for bereaved families and an example of security overkill by
federal authorities.

"Mom's dead. She pre-arranged everything 10 years ago and bought a
bronze urn. Now the son can't take her home to Ohio after the funeral. .
. . It's one more thing that a grieving family has to consider," Murphy
said.

Murphy questioned whether urns have ever been used by terrorists, and
whether an X-ray machine could distinguish between human ashes and
something like gunpowder. 

Marcia Florian, federal security director for the Transportation
Security Administration in Phoenix, said she doesn't know of an instance
when an urn was used to smuggle explosives, but added, "We can't look at
it that way. It only takes one."

Florian said an X-ray machine can detect differences in urn contents,
and explosives swabs are used to double-check anything suspicious.

A typical urn contains about seven pounds of bone dust and crushed
fragments.

Mourners deal with the remains in myriad ways. Some place the entire urn
in a mausoleum or columbarium (a wall with special niches). Some empty
the contents in favorite places. Some may take a little ash to put in a
locket, or leave the urn on a shelf in the den.

Springer said those who are dead don't know the difference or care about
airport security hassles, but it means a lot to the living - some of
whom wait a long time to dispose of ashes. 


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