Despite privacy issues surrounding airport full body security scanners, more travelers appear willing to subject themselves to the devices in the wake of the Christmas Day terrorist incident involving Northwest Airlines.
Six major U.S. airports are already using full body scanners at specific checkpoints instead of metal detectors. The scanners are also used at 13 other airports for random checks and so-called secondary screenings of passengers who set off detectors.
Many more air travelers may have to get used to the idea soon inasmuch as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has ordered 150 more full body scanners to be installed in airports throughout the country in 2010.
Such scanners probably would have detected the explosive materials Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to ignite aboard the Detroit-bound Northwest flight Christmas Day. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has 15 full body scanners, but none were used to scan the alleged terrorist. Privacy concerns over the scanners’ ability to see through clothing have so far kept them from widespread use.
Photographs of the incendiary device alleged used by Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, was leaked to ABC News. The photos show singed briefs and a packet of powder — sewn into the crotch and pulled out. The 6-inch-long bomb packet contains less than half a cup of the high-explosive chemical PETN, weighing about 80 grams, ABC reported. It said a government test with 50 grams of PETN — the amount that “shoe bomber” Richard Reid carried aboard a jet over Christmas 2001 — blew a hole in the side of an airliner.
As for the underpants bomb, the detonator — acid in a syringe — did not work, ABC noted. Passengers and cabin crew subdued the alleged terrorist and extinguished a small fire started by the device.
The incident, an embarrassment to the Obama administration, set off a round of finger pointing among multiple federal agencies. It is reported that the U.S. had multiple pieces of information about alleged bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, including intelligence reports and communications intercepts suggesting a Nigerian was being prepped for a terror strike by al Qaeda operatives in Yemen. The intercepts were collected by the National Security Agency.
In addition, the father of Abdulmutallab met with the Central Intelligence Agency at the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, Nov. 19, and told of his son’s likely radicalization. That led to a broader gathering of agencies the next day, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department, in which the information was shared.
Abdulmutallab was placed in an anti-terrorism database containing the names of persons of interest, but he was not included in the 400,000-person terror watch list or on the list of persons who should be blocked from air travel. As a result, he was able to board a jetliner bound for the United States.
Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on Northwest Flight 253, and U.S. officials said the claim appears valid.
President Barack Obama blamed a combination of “human and systemic failures” in security for allowing the botched Christmas Day attack aboard the U.S. airliner.
“The reviews I have ordered will surely tell us more, but already what is apparent was that there was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security,” Obama said.
“When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been … a systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable,” Obama added.
The 23-year-old Nigerian was charged in a federal criminal complaint with attempting to destroy a Northwest Airlines airliner on final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam, Netherlands on December 24 with an incendiary device attached to his body.
As the flight was approaching Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Abdulmutallab set off the device, which resulted in a fire and what appears to have been an explosion. The airplane landed shortly thereafter, and he was taken into custody by Customs and Border Patrol officers.
A preliminary FBI analysis found that the device contained PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a high explosive. FBI agents recovered what appear to be the remnants of the syringe from the vicinity of Abdulmutallab’s seat, believed to have been part of the device.
Interviews of passengers and crew of Flight 253 revealed that prior to the incident, Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom for approximately twenty minutes, Upon returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab stated that his stomach was upset, and he pulled a blanket over himself.
Passengers then heard popping noises similar to firecrackers, smelled an odor, and some observed Abdulmutallab’s pants leg and the wall of the airplane on fire. Passengers and crew subdued Abdulmutallab and used blankets and fire extinguishers to put out the flames. Passengers reported that Abdulmutallab was calm and lucid throughout. One flight attendant asked him what he had had in his pocket, and he replied “explosive device,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Airline passengers suffered travel woes as ramped up security measures followed the thwarted Christmas Day terror incident.
Airline travelers were told to check in four hours ahead of their scheduled departure times, while bomb-sniffing dogs were visible at airports across the country, Once on board their flights, passengers were told they would be unable to hold coats or blankets in their laps and would not be allowed to enter aircraft restrooms for the last hour of their flights.