This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Salt Lake City International Airport's latest security measure may make you jump.
Step into the General Electric Entry Scan, an "explosive trace portal" (ETP), and you'll feel short bursts of air from head to toe. The plume of air is then vacuumed up and, for 17 seconds, analyzed for traces of materials used in explosive devices.
If you pass, the glass doors on the phone-boothlike contraption will open, allowing you to step out and clear the next security hurdle - the metal detector.
"I'd have to say I'm comfortable with it," said Joe Deavila, a Salt Lake City resident headed to Palm Springs, Calif., on Friday to play golf. "I'm not scared to go through it. In the long run, I think it'll be a good thing. I think the airport probably needs stuff like this now."
Ronald Malin, the airport's federal security director, said the ETPs - five of which were installed here - became operational Monday, and are among dozens popping up at airports around the country.
The Transportation Security Administration, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, has spent more than $30 million on the new technology in the hope it will avert terrorists' ability to smuggle bombs and other kinds of weapons onto airplanes.
Malin declined to say what the machines are calibrated for, but since Monday, no screened passenger had triggered an alarm.
TSA first piloted the security machines at U.S. airports in the summer of 2004, about the same time Chechen terrorists set off bombs aboard two Russian jetliners, killing 90 passengers and crew. The bombs detonated after the jets took off from Moscow.
After the explosive trace portals are installed at the nation's busiest airports, the TSA will begin using X-ray backscatter technology, though no specific date or airports have been selected, the agency announced earlier this year.
X-ray backscatter devices use low radiation to produce an image that shows a person's body and any metal, plastic or organic materials hidden beneath clothing.
While walking through the ETPs adds an average 30 to 40 seconds to a passenger's wait time in line, Malin said, those passengers who pass through both the ETP and metal detector are not subject to a pat-down search.
The puffer machines, as the ETPs have come to be known, have startled some toddlers, and even caused a few adults to shudder, but have generally been well received by passengers, Malin said.
"It's just another layer [of security]," he said.
Standing in the security line, his shoes and other personal belongings in gray trays bound for an X-ray machine, Nick Furness waited for his turn to stand in a $160,000 puffer.
"Should be interesting," he said, as the passenger in front of him was ruffled by bursts of air. "It seems like a lot of money to be spending."
His father, Bryant Furness, chimed in, "It's better than being blown up."
En route to Tel Aviv, Israel, Bryant Furness said U.S. airports need to follow the lead of international airports abroad where security is even more stringent. The ETP is a good move, he said.
"It will make me feel safer."