Technology lacking to scan cargo pallets on planes

A lack of technology may prevent the Transportation Security Administration from achieving a mandate to screen all cargo on passenger airplanes by 2010, agency security officials told a House subcommittee on Wednesday.

Comment on this article in The Forum.TSA, which Congress mandated must screen all cargo loaded on airplanes to check for materials that can be used in a terrorist attack, cannot find technology that can screen packages loaded on pallets, said James Tuttle, director of the explosives division at the Science and Technology Directorate at the Homeland Security Department. Pallets are platforms that hold large quantities of goods that have been wrapped together to make packing and loading easier.

"The biggest problem is the size of the pallets," Tuttle told a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Transportation. "There is not technology that can screen a whole pallet, period. There's nothing even close."

Without the technology, he said TSA must unload a pallet to screen it on site or screen it before it is wrapped for shipment. In addition, while there are technologies that can screen cargo once it is unpacked from a larger shipment, those technologies can only scan certain kinds of products and food. Tuttle said his division was working on technologies that could scan unpacked pallets, but they will take a while to develop.

TSA must screen 50 percent of all cargo on passenger jets by February 2009 and 100 percent by August 2010. The frequency and relatively cheap cost of passenger flights make commercial aircraft an attractive mode of transporting certain goods.

The mandate poses significant challenges, warned John Sammon, assistant administrator for transportation sector network management at TSA. He said TSA learned from a pilot program in San Francisco that it was impossible to unload, screen and re-pack pallets on site at an airport.

Sammon suggests TSA use a method similar to Britain's, in which shipments are screened at the point of assembly. Once they are cleared, the goods are securely transported to the airport, with handlers and truck drivers whose backgrounds have been checked. TSA plans to certify 80 shipping sites by February and 15,000 locations by August 2010.

Sammon assured lawmakers that with this strategy, TSA could meet the deadlines. "Screening cargo at the appropriate time and place in the supply chain will keep cargo and freight flowing," he said. "Unscreened cargo will not be allowed to fly after 2010. If 100 pounds is all that is screened, 100 pounds is all that will fly."

Forcing TSA to examine the cargo only at airports would lead to long delays, negating the advantage of using passenger aircraft to ship the cargo, Sammon said. "What we don't want to do is pass regulations forcing air carriers to screen all cargo at airports," he said. "It would cause a lot of congestion in the facilities."