Airport machines add air of security

Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005 | 10:53 a.m.

Passengers still exchange puzzled looks when they line up to enter the futuristic looking "puff" machines at the C and D gates of McCarran International Airport.

The new machines squirt bursts of air at passengers from head to toe, almost like the puff tests administered during an eye exam.

The air around the passenger is then analyzed for explosive particles.

The Transportation Security Administration has been testing the machines at McCarran since February. Trials are going so well at McCarran and 13 other airports that McCarran will receive more of the machines. McCarran is expected to get its additional ones in the next few weeks.

In all, the TSA plans to deploy another 100 machines by January 2006. Each costs between $160,000 and $170,000.

The new machines at McCarran will be added to the A and B gate security areas, said Jose Ralls, acting federal security director for the TSA's office at McCarran.

TSA officials use the machines with passengers who have been identified as needing extra screening, Ralls said. Jennifer Peppin, a TSA spokeswoman, said the selection process for additional screening is random.

After Sept. 11, 2001, some passengers, mostly women, complained that they were being touched inappropriately when they needed extra security. The machines have replaced the pat downs that many passengers have complained about before, Ralls said.

"It helps us to just go ahead and move folks along," Ralls said. "It's not intrusive."

More importantly, it also adds a layer of security, TSA and airport officials said.

Airport security personnel have long been swabbing bags to see if they have traces of explosives. The new machines are a new way to test passengers' hair, skin and clothes, she said.

"When you walk through a metal detector, that's looking for metal, that's not looking for traces of explosives," she said. "This is looking for a different type of threat."

While it takes almost 15 seconds to go through the machine, security officials at the airport said they get few complaints because people want more security features.

"People like it," Ralls said.

Passenger Hanady Bailey, a 24-year-old model from Denver, said recently she hadn't seen the machines before but felt safer with them.

She said the blasts of air weren't uncomfortable at all.

"It was refreshing," she said.