A Puff of Air Can Detect a Bomb

Carol Cline, a federal Transportation Security Administration screener, loves it when she gets a chance to operate one of Pittsburgh International Airport's two explosives detection trace portals, commonly called "puffer machines." "This machine is so funny," Cline said as a businesswoman walked into the phone booth-sized machine.

"Firing jets now," the machine said.

Then the machine blasted the businesswoman, Lisa Simonton of Ross Township, from head to toe with short puffs of air from 37 air jets inside the booth.

"Ooooooh," Simonton blurted out, her eyes wide, as she was puffered.

Outside the machine, Simonton laughed and said, "I didn't know what was going on there, but it wasn't so bad. That was reminiscent of the funhouse at Kennywood Park."

And so it went for the next half hour or so. Of the dozens of people who passed through the machine, at least half broke a smile when they were hit with the puffs of air, an estimated one in five looked a bit startled, and one infant cried in his mother's arms.

"It's funny to see the expressions on people's faces. It does startle some people -- we had one woman who got scared and ran out the back of the machine when the air came on. But it doesn't bother most people, and some even like it," Cline said.

While the machine is making passengers laugh, though, it's also doing the deadly serious work of testing the air particles it forces off people's clothing and skin for traces of explosives.

TSA spokeswoman Laura Snell said the machines are an "extra layer" of security. All of those layers have been tested since a terror plot to blow up U.S.-bound planes with liquid explosives was stopped on Aug. 10.

Most passengers learned quickly about TSA restrictions prohibiting passengers from carrying liquids and gels onto flights, but the puffer machines still remain a bit of mystery to many passengers, even though they've been at Pittsburgh since last year.

Only a fraction of the passengers who go through Pittsburgh's main security checkpoint pass through the puffer machine there, but all passengers do at the airport's alternate checkpoint area, which is open during peak travel hours. At the main checkpoint, some passengers' boarding passes indicate they must go through the puffer machine, while screeners select others randomly.

The test takes less than 20 seconds.

"It's not any bother at all, as far as I'm concerned. It surprised me a little, but whatever it takes to make sure we're safe is fine with me," said Sandra Abmayr, a Pittsburgh native living in Houston.

"It's very easy for passengers to navigate, but difficult for terrorists to manipulate" because of the random element, said TSA spokesman Darren Keyser.

Between 5 and 9 a.m. Thursday, 850 passengers passed through the two puffer machines, TSA spokeswoman Laura Snell said.

TSA has bought 147 puffer machines for $28.3 million since 2004. To date, it has placed 94 of them in 37 airports across the country.

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