DHS experiments with testing planes for radioactive cargo

In between two hangars, near planes used to transport heads of state and military cargo, agents from DHS are searching every cranny of a DC-9 and a Gulf Stream jet. They are looking for what security officials say could be the components of terrorists’ deadliest weapon yet: radioactive and nuclear material that could be used to make bombs. USA Today’s Mimi Hall writes that the agents’ work is part of a 4-month, $4 million test to see whether the government’s radiation-detection equipment can pick up depleted uranium and other radioactive material hidden aboard passenger planes. Vayl Oxford, who runs the department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), says agents began radiation screening of private planes at the start of the year amid concerns that terrorists could try to “bypass the traditional ports of entry,” such as airports and border crossings where security systems are in place. DHS secretary Michael Chertoff calls it a “very real threat” that terrorists could smuggle a weapon of mass destruction into the country on a private plane. Critics, however, say the scans could be a waste of time. “Scanning in the United States doesn’t help” because a terrorist with a nuke will just detonate it in midair over a big city, says Randall Larsen, a former National War College professor who now heads a security consulting firm. “It’s not the best return on investment for preventing a mushroom cloud over an American city.”

Based on a report about the threat from Oxford’s office, Chertoff ordered that all “general aviation” planes from overseas be scanned when they land in the United States. General aviation planes are private jets and charter planes that are not put through the same security as commercial airlines before they take off. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents earlier this year began working with the equipment they had - heavy, shoebox-sized detectors typically used to check large cargo containers at seaports and trucks at the borders — to scan private planes at 105 airports. The agency had to immediately “cover the gap” in security, says Julian Hill, who is in charge of the new tests at Andrews Air Force Base, the ultra-secure home of Air Force One. How well a detector works might depend on the geometry of the area being searched, Hill says. A detector that can find a radioactive source in a cargo container might not be able to find it stuffed behind a passenger seat, stashed in the cockpit or hidden in a suitcase in the belly of the plane. So the agents at Andrews are trying to determine if the detectors now in use are up to the task of finding depleted uranium, cesium-137, cobalt-57 or barium-133 hidden on a plane. Tests are also being done on other detectors to help officials decide whether to invest in more of the detectors the government already has or to buy a different brand. After the radioactive material is hidden on the planes, two-person teams scan them inch-by-inch and the information they collect is reviewed by a team of analysts working in one of the base’s empty hangars.

Oxford acknowledges that scanning the planes overseas — or at least off the U.S. mainland — is the best approach. He says DHS is working toward that, setting up test programs in Shannon, Ireland; Anchorage and the Caribbean. Making agreements with overseas airports and foreign leaders to allow U.S. agents to scan planes abroad could take years, however. In the meantime, Oxford says, scanning in the U.S. is a deterrent in the effort to “close the front door” to terrorists trying to smuggle a deadly weapon into the country.