Electronic Bomb Sniffer Eases Airport Flow

After only several days of testing, a security machine that checks for explosive residue revealed that it might create a huge benefit for airline passengers.

During security screenings, passengers will no longer be required to remove their shoes.

"It saves time because they don't have to take their shoes off," said Kevin L. Graham, screening supervisor for the Transportation Security Administration.

On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of passengers passed through Ion Track's EntryScan machine, which blows a puff of air on them and tests the air for explosives. Though the machine requires 15 seconds to work, security screeners have noticed no delays and airport officials have not received complaints.

"One guy didn't want to walk through," said Graham. "I told him, 'You've got to go through.' And he did."

Gulfport-Biloxi International is among five of the nation's 400 airports selected to test the $130,000 machine. A false positive reading could happen if someone has been firing a weapon or handling nitroglycerine heart medication. False alerts, which result in careful searches of passengers, are less than one percent.

The false positive rate is way less that 1 percent.

Airline passengers said pausing under the arch to be sniffed by a puff of air did not seem odd.

"It blows a lot harder than I thought it would," said software salesman Eric Hienman of Atlanta. The puffs of air shook his clothes.

"I don't think it slowed me down at all," added Hienman, who takes four flights a week and endured a seven-hour delay before boarding a plane on Tuesday morning.