By Calvin Biesecker

The installation this year of 450 whole body imaging systems at some of the nation’s airports should fit into existing aviation security checkpoints without significant modifications and their use is expected to barely increase passenger wait times, the acting chief of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) told a House panel last week.

Some of the airports that will receive the new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) systems have already said they are ready for the machines so “we’re confident we don’t have to go through major construction issues,” Gale Rossides, acting assistant administrator for TSA, told the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee last Thursday. While the AIT machines have a larger footprint than walk-through metal detectors, a lot of the airports have the necessary room to accept the initial deployment of the new imaging systems, she said.

TSA already had 40 AIT systems deployed to 19 airports as part of a pilot project begun in 1997. Last week, the agency initiated the deployment of 150 more systems that were contracted for last September. The agency also plans to purchase and install 300 more machines this year.

Based on the experiences with the pilot tests, Rossides said the wider scale introduction of AIT machines will not significantly impact passenger wait times at security checkpoints for several reasons. One is that putting passengers’ carry-on bags through X-ray systems accounts for the bulk of the time a person takes to pass through the checkpoint despite how quickly people pass through the metal detectors.

While it takes longer for someone to go through an imaging scanner, the agency believes this will not “significantly” increase passenger wait times, Rossides said. Moreover, deploying additional Transportation Security Officers to advise passengers what they need to divest and what to do as they enter the AIT portal will contribute to keeping wait times down, she said.

Beyond that, Rossides said that TSA needs to “educate the traveling public” about what to expect with the AIT systems to facilitate smoother operations at checkpoints.

TSA is seeking nearly $215 million for 500 additional AITs in FY ’11. Those systems should be deployed by the end of 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said yesterday during a live chat on Facebook.

As for TSA’s plans to acquire more AIT systems beyond the first 1,000, Rossides told the panel the agency is still assessing the optimum number of machines that will be needed. The agency’s budget documents sent to Congress last month say that 1,800 AITs will be needed at full operating capability (Defense Daily, Feb. 2).

TSA currently has contracts in place to purchase AITs from two vendors, L-3 Communications [LLL] and OSI Systems [OSIS].

Rossides was asked by Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), the ranking member of the subcommittee, at the hearing whether an AIT scan would have found the bomb hidden in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underwear before boarding a flight to the United States from Amsterdam last Christmas.

“Without going into the specifics of that, because of the ongoing criminal investigation, I will tell you that the experience we have had, both in the lab and in our pilots, our officers are identifying objects on the body comparable to what that threat was,” she replied.

“Every time?” Rogers asked.

Rossides said she’d have to get back with more specifics but noted that “we have very good measures in place for evaluating our officers.”

As to whether a pat down search would have found the underwear bomb, Rossides said that currently TSA doesn’t do a full body pat down in sensitive body parts such as “where that bomb was secreted.”

TSA doesn’t screen passengers at overseas airports that have flights outbound for the United States.

Rossides said that the AIT systems are not the magic bullet to aviation security but that they do improve security beyond current systems at checkpoints. In the future, TSA would like industry to work on developing a security system that combines an AIT with a metal detector, she said.

In other matters, Rossides said that while the TSA expects to meet the deadline this August to screen 100 percent of air cargo for explosives that is loaded on passenger planes at U.S. airports, the same congressionally-mandated deadline for ensuring that all cargo bound for the United States aboard passenger planes departing from international airports won’t be met. That’s not news but Rossides said her estimate from a year ago that 75 percent of the international air cargo would be screened for explosives by August is optimistic and her staff is saying it will be more like 65 percent.

Napolitano said yesterday during her Facebook chat that the international screening mandate would be met by year end. However, Rossides said last week that it may be two years before the United States gets 100 percent compliance for international air cargo screening.

Most of the challenges associated with international compliance are that some of the foreign countries and airports don’t have the “basic capabilities” to do all of the screening, Rossides said. It comes down to a lack of resources to either invest in the technology or build the capabilities, she said. She said that where TSA has visited, the host governments and carriers have been very cooperative.

If it turns out that some foreign countries can’t do 100 percent screening, “we are going to have to look at alternative measures if it comes down to that in terms of how do we enable these foreign governments to meet this challenge,” she said.

There are 98 countries where TSA needs to gain compliance for air cargo screening, Rossides said. About 20 countries account for 84 percent of the air cargo originating overseas and bound for the United States so those are the places where the agency is focusing most of its attention, she said.