WASHINGTON – X-ray machines that screen airline passengers’ shoes cannot detect explosives, according to a Homeland Security Department report on aviation screening.
Findings from the report did not stop the Transportation Security Administration from announcing Sunday that all airline passengers must remove their shoes and run them through X-ray machines before boarding commercial aircraft.
The shoe-scanning requirement was ordered among other new security procedures implemented last week after British police broke up a terrorist plot to assemble and detonate bombs aboard as many as 10 airliners crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Britain to the United States.
On Sunday, the TSA made it mandatory for shoes to be run through X-ray machines as passengers go through metal detectors. The scans were begun in late 2001, after the arrest of Richard Reid aboard a trans-Atlantic flight when he tried to ignite an explosive device hidden in his shoe.
The shoe scans have been optional for airports for several years.
In its April 2005 report, “Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security – Phase I,” the Homeland Security Department concluded that images on X-ray machines don’t provide the information necessary to detect explosives.
Machines used at most airports to scan hand-held luggage, purses, briefcases and shoes have not been upgraded to detect explosives since the report was issued.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
