Have you ever wondered to yourself what exactly those airport security people see when they look into your bags with an X-ray machine? Do you ponder what they could possibly be doing with your shoes when they run a check on them for explosives or narcotics? Do you contemplate how accurate their metal detectors can be to detect everything from a loaded firearm down to a spare house key you forgot to take out of your jacket pocket? Do you want to know why they insist on having you remove your laptops and other major electronic devices from your bags before scanning them? Read on and learn more.
Flying in the modern world can be a nuisance. The versatility of determined people who want to smuggle contraband, weapons, or bombs onto a flight is responsible for the many procedures any airport traveler must endure on the way to their flight. A typical business traveler might expect to have to remove his shoes for examination, remove his laptop from his bags for X-ray scanning, have his bags swabbed, and pass through a metal detector for the dubious privilege of purchasing ‘secure’ drinks at the airport gate restaurant for exorbitant prices while waiting for his flight. However, every step of this thorough examination has a purpose, to limit the ways in which a terrorist threat or illegal cargo can board an airplane.
The traveler himself typically has to pass an inspection via metal detector. A standard FAA-approved metal detector such as the AUTOClear CheckGate 8000 is fairly straightforward – the person to be tested passes through the metal detector, and a loud tone is emitted if a metal object is detected on their person. To prevent inadvertent alarms from nearby objects, quality metal detectors usually are built to screen out electromagnetic and radio frequency noise (so the cell phone of the guy behind you who refuses to put it in the X-ray machine until the very last moment won’t get you in trouble) and calibrated to their environment (so as not to generate large amounts of false positives from poor design choices like placing the metal detector on a metal walkway.) They usually are also calibrated so that, for example, the metal in the zipper of your trousers won’t set it off, but the hula girl letter opener you forgot to take out of your jacket pocket will, by determining a given ‘safe’ threshold that must be exceeded for the alarm to sound.
When more careful examination is required, TSA officials and other security personnel rely on hand wands – lightweight metal detectors that provide variable tones based on the amount of metal present. This allows security officers to quickly, efficiently, and noninvasively scan people for weapons without an intrusive physical search, and provides evidence to authorize a physical search if necessary.
Meanwhile, your carry-on luggage is subjected to X-ray scanning from a TSA-approved cargo screening X-ray scanner such as the AUTOClear 6040, which feeds luggage through on a conveyor while allowing security personnel to see the contents and determine the materials thereof. Modern scanners like the 6040 allow security personnel to see organic, inorganic, and composite materials in different colors (orange, blue, and green, for the AUTOClear line), with darker colors indicating greater density. This allows the machine operator to easily pinpoint potential bomb and weapon components, as well as narcotics and other smuggled goods, without requiring an invasive (and possibly dangerous) search of every bag by hand. This is why airport security requires that you remove laptops and other bulky electronics to be scanned separately, among other restrictions – to avoid false positives made when a set of innocuous contents resembles an explosive on the X-ray monitors. Since the TSA must take every potential threat seriously — after all, they will have to handle the explosive consequences firsthand — cutting down on these misidentifications ensures a safer environment for them and the public, and ensures less delays in travel.
While you may not directly see this in action (unless you regularly travel with large amounts of electronics), trace detectors such as the AUTOClear E5000 are also used on your checked luggage (and occasionally on yourself and your carry-on luggage) to detect possible traces of explosives and narcotic substances, either by analyzing them for a match to specific known compounds or by attempting to match them to the components commonly found in explosive substances. This commonly requires a simple surface test of the object to be scanned, and takes less than a minute to perform. As someone who has personally seen these tests in action from previous airport trips, I can assure you that they are non-invasive (usually a simple cotton swab over the surface area, or a close ‘sniff’ by the nozzle of the device, is all that is necessary), and simply allow for a presumptive scan of an object or area in the same way that a drug-sniffing or bomb-sniffing dog’s perusal can give probable cause to more carefully inspect a suspicious item or person. Detecting the residue of military explosives on one’s shoes might simply mean they are a soldier on their way home from active duty, but it also might mean that someone’s been building bombs in their basement — probably not the person you want sitting next to you on a long flight.
The Transportation Security Administration uses X-ray scanners, trace detectors, and metal detectors to screen passengers and luggage to provide safety and security to passengers and flight crew with as little impact on speed as possible. New advancements in scanning technology mean faster processing at the airport terminal and safer flights for all concerned. The TSA has a difficult, dangerous, and often thankless job to do, and security scanners such as those manufactured by AUTOClear ensure they can do their job to the best of their capabilities.
