Lufthansa selects Smiths Detection for cargo security

Published 10 September 2008

Lufthansa will deploy Smiths Detection’s 500DT trace explosives detectors in all of its eighteen U.S. airport locations; the 500DT was recently placed on the TSA Qualified Products List

Pine Brook, New Jersey-based Smiths Detection, part of the Smiths Group, said Lufthansa Cargo is acquiring 19 IONSCAN 500DT dual-trace explosives detectors for all Lufthansa U.S. airport locations. The desktop detectors were recently placed on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)’s Qualified Products List.

Lufthansa Cargo is the first to deploy the newly qualified equipment for ground-to-air cargo screening. Such screening complie with the TSA rule requiring all cargo in passenger planes be screened by 2010. The company recently announced the creation of new “security hubs” in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Stephen Phipson, Group Managing Director of Smiths Detection, said: “Our investment in R&D continues to drive technology developments in a broad range of screening solutions and this contract underlines how these advances are helping our customers implement the 100% cargo screening increasingly sought by authorities.”

Smiths Detection’s IONSCAN 500DT is a second-generation system that can identify small amounts of explosives from a single sample in a matter of seconds.