Experts say cargo bombs expose gaps in air security
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The bombs found on board two US-bound cargo aircraft this weekend demonstrate that current freight-screening technology still cannot guarantee air security, according to experts.
As the government’s emergency planning committee Cobra meets today to discuss tougher airport security measures, explosive detection experts have told The Engineer there will continue to be dangerous gaps in security without the development of more advanced screening technology.
Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, the type of explosive material used in the bombs found onboard cargo aircraft at East Midlands airport and Dubai airport were hidden inside computer printers. The deadly devices were not picked up by X-ray screening or sniffer dogs.
Don Arnone, chief executive of Cambridge-based TeraView, said this shows the ‘deficiency’ of current cargo checks, which are done in bulk.
While PETN went unnoticed by X-ray screening, Arnone said it could have been spotted using advanced security detection techniques such as ion mobility spectroscopy (IMS).
An IMS mass spectrometer works by sucking in air samples and differentiating ionised molecules by their mobility in the gas phase. If an air sample was taken from cargo, he said, it could help analysts determine whether an explosive substance was present.
Arnone stressed it would be challenging to attain measurements from large cargo because samples would need to be captured from multiple points. A cargo container the size of a small room, he said, could take up to 20 minutes to measure.
In order to reduce the chance of false positives, Arnone added IMS could be used with at least one other detection technique.
Earlier this year The Engineer reported on a TeraView scanning technology under development for passenger screening at airports. The company’s technology uses Terahertz light to detect different types of plastic explosives through clothing, including PETN, the explosive that a foiled bomber successfully carried onto a US airliner flying from Amsterdam to Detroit last December.
Arnone said this technology could also be developed for cargo screening.
The bombs at East Midlands airport and Dubai airport were discovered following a tip-off by an informant to Saudi Arabian intelligence. According to reports, a special team of officers from MI5, MI6 and GCHQ was activated as soon as Saudi Arabian authorities tipped off US and UK intelligence agencies.
Arnone said intelligence will play a major role in maintaining air security as even advanced screening technologies are not perfect and checking every piece of cargo would be impractical.
‘It’s obviously not foolproof but if you combine that with intelligence on where the shipment came from, the origin of the shipment and where it’s going, the agencies can make some intelligent decisions about what they spend time checking thoroughly,’ he said.
‘There is a fundamental issue at the moment that until that technology exists there will be gaps in security. So there’s no silver bullet here to solve the problem now, there may be in the future, but at the moment governments can only use the technology that they have to deploy and do it in a slightly more intelligent and slightly more thorough manner than they’re doing.’
Readers' comments (4)
Sumit Majumdar | 2 Nov 2010 6:18 am
The cargo bay at the tail of an aircraft should be detachable and that part attached to the aircraft body should be made of stronger material than the body of the aircraft. The part of the cargo bay adjacent to the aircraft body should also be compartmentalized. The design should be such that there is an air gap between the fuselage and the detachable cargo bay.
In the event of a bomb blast, the cargo bay, propelled by compressed gas, should detach itself from the aircraft instantaneously.
The blast would, to an extent, be cushioned by the compartmentalized section of the cargo bay. The blast would also blow out the lower part of the cargo bay made of comparatively weaker material.
Passengers would experience turbulence and the rear of the aircraft will experience a sudden lift which onboard computers should be able to correct.
This is just a theory without taking into account any parameters.
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S. Martin | 3 Nov 2010 3:22 pm
Cargo containers are a much better option, they have already been designed and manufactured for many cargo types as they facilitate easy loading and unloading. Many of these can be manufactured to withstand an explosive blast, and indeed, some are in service and working.
Using this as a standard format means individual containers could be sampled and isolated, saving hours of searching and much precious cargo.
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JG | 3 Nov 2010 5:11 pm
Introduce profiling, especially for individual "rogue" packages like this - the declared sender had even had her identity stolen. A little delay to inanimate objects is much better than the gross delay and frequent THEFT of innocuous belongings which have been practised on human beings for several years by this overblown "industry".
One phone call would have saved this emergency. The cost of freight is already quite enough to pay for that.
e.g. Why would a N.Y. Jew want a printer from the Yemen? With the excellent products of USA and cheaper ones if required from East Asia in bulk. Its value would not be worth the shipping to a normal/honest transaction.
Let us have some common sense and reject unlikely parcels, at least until carefully analysed/confirmed, right where they are posted.
Concentrate air freight on travellers' personal belongings, well documented at both ends, and mass delivery of accredited commercial items.
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Stephen Mosley | 4 Nov 2010 10:45 am
I thought a blast proof standard container had been developed? I cannot help but think that one made of material specifically designed for blast absorption would, overall, be more reliable and cost effective than security checks. I would certainly much rather fly in an aircraft where a bomb going off provided nothing more than a bit of a start than in one where an incomplete check had been made to stop the bomb getting on-board in the first place.
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