Boggie Dog

Nice year plus bump.

Question, good soap might get most of the black powder off ones skin. What do we use to remove the glycerins found in many personal care products, you know those things that alarm that ETD tester know for false alarms?

chollie

For that matter, how can I be sure that if I try to carry my nitro pills with me again it will be OK? (I stopped carrying them when I fly after one very unsettling incident when they were confiscated).

The rules say no explosives. Period. I have looked on the website and found no, zero, none, nada exemptions under any circumstances.

My pills were found during a bag search (swabs were all clean, they are in a bottle within a bottle). The TSO was reading the labels on the prescription bottles and that's when things blew up (figuratively). TSOs, suits, LEs, all of whom expressed disbelief at my stupidity in thinking nitro would ever be allowed on the plane at any time ever.

(I have subsequently wondered: given the supposed extra care taken when confiscating firearms - they don't just get tossed in the 'dangerous items' bin - I wonder if they took special precautions in the ultimate disposal of my dangerous item, or if it just went into the bin? I wonder if some enterprising TSO took it home for 4th of July fun-n-games?)

gsoltso

Good soap will get most things off.

I have only heard of nitro causing problem elsewhere, and the regs do not state that nitro pills are prohibited, quite the opposite, they are considered medicinal items, and some folks need them. I am sorry that you had the troubles you did, but if prescribed Nitro pills were confiscated, it was wrong. Even if you go to the TSA site for prohibited items and type in "nitro pills" in the "can I take this" app, it brings up the information about allowable medicines -

http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-informat...ohibited-items

petaluma1

Unfortunately, if one washes one's hands at the airport before security and one has the misfortune to be caught in the swab trap, one is likely to set off the alarm.

Has the TSA ever stopped to realize that not one of these alarms have ever found explosives and has only caused thousands of people to be delayed and to suffer humiliation at the hands of screeners?

spd476

The TSA needs to come up with a better test. The current one is generating too many false alarms on soap and lotion. It's never resulted in the capture of a terrorist. It has caused lots of innocent travelers a lot of hassle though.

I travel with an insulin pump. Since it can't go through the body scanners, and it seems to set off the metal detector, I get swabbed at every checkpoint. I've never failed one of these tests, but it is something I worry about. I would be interested to know if anybody with a pump has had a false alarm on the ETD test and what happened with the additional screening.

TheRoadie

I'm sure there are SOME thoughtful people at the agency, and they have deluded themselves into thinking that the systems are deterring attacks even as they detect no explosives. The tiny chance that there would be a true positive test is enough to make the bad guys go off and do their dirty work at malls, trains, bus stations, subways, bridges, tunnels, sporting events, etc.

The Boston Marathon bombing is proof enough to them.

Thoughtful people outside the agency might conclude that folks who try to smuggle WEI onto an airplane are probably suicide bombers, and there are a lot fewer of them than there are non-suicide bombers.

InkUnderNails

I am not sure if there are fewer, but there are certainly fewer repetitive ones.

Boggie Dog

Just a quick check, Dial brand bar soap contains glycerin. Isn't glycerin in a chemical family that will alarm the faultless, never wrong TSA Explosvie Trace Detector machine?

I suggest that the machines purchased by TSA are not well designed for the intended job.

cynicAAl

if the "intended job" was not to accurately assess risk/danger, but to impress the uneducated masses that "science" is keeping them safe with a fancy machine, then the machines are doing their intended job.

gsoltso

Technically speaking, the machines are not wrong, they pick up traces of explosives. Some of the elements in explosives are also found in a myriad of other items as well.

You would not be the first person to suggest that the machines are not suited to the job TSA uses them for, and I am certain you will not be the last. That is also a matter of debate that will/does occur at a much higher level than mine.

chollie

What about ruling out contamination? What possible reason is there for not testing a second swab after a positive reading, glove change, new swab? If the second swab (test) comes back positive before touching the pax, there's clearly a problem, and it isn't necessarily the pax. Yes, I'm aware that the TSO may have contaminated himself during the first swabbing. Even if that is the case, I can see absolutely no reason whatsoever why a second swab shouldn't be tested before touching the pax to ensure that it is, indeed, clean before it touches the pax.

This is standard procedure in any other industry/situation I've ever seen - first thing you do after getting a positive is make sure that the TESTing is not at fault.

WillCAD

"No explosives. No exceptions."

"Good. Nitro pills are NOT explosives. The don't explode. They can't explode. They are medications, and they are allowed on board."

I have never heard of nitro pills causing genuine problems, except for Chollie's story, in which the nitro didn't cause a problem, a poorly-trained TSO with a bad attitude caused a problem.

I have heard many urban myths about mitro pills and patches exploding under extreme circumstances, but they have all been thoroughly debunked. Nitro pills and patches do not contain enough of the explosive chemical to create an explosive reaction, and they are cut with sufficient inert material that lumping a bunch of them together in a barrel would not make them explosive either.

As you are, IMHO, the most reasonable and logical of the TSOs who post on FlyerTalk, I hope that your attitude and demeanor rub off on your coworkers at GSO.

Technically speaking, the machines do not detect explosives at all. Rather, they pick up traces of certain chemical compounds. These compounds are components of common explosives, but they are also components of many other completely harmless everyday products.

I don't have an objection to swab or puffer tests for explosives, but the current methodolgy is far too inexact for my taste. It's the chemical equivalent to InkUnderNails' story of a few months ago, wherein a Barney Fife of a TSO started pointing out harmless electronics in his tool bag and purporting that they could be made into IED components.

We need a machine that tests for for the finished products, not the individual compounds that comprise common explosives. Until we get that, we need to ease off the response to a positive test for a harmless chemical compound that might be part of an explosive.

Boggie Dog

Technically speaking, if an infallible TSA ETD machine alarms on Dial soap then the machine alarmed on a non-explosive. Same goes for hand lotions and all of the other common household items these devices alarm on.

Perhaps these things are the best science can provide but if so the abuse heap on passengers who do alarm needs to be dialed back.

chollie

WillCAD, you mention Ink's experience (not the norm for him).

I'm sure my nitro experience was similar - not the norm. However....anything to do with explosives gets real scary, real fast, and you are told that mandatory reports of the incident will be filed.

One of the reasons I never carried my pills since that incident is because in the unlikely event they were flagged again, I'm on record in some DHS/TSA database as having been caught at the checkpoint with nitro. Knowing TSA, I suspect it's unlikely they pointed out that it was in a prescription bottle and it was a medication.

I want to re-emphasize: in my case, no swab came back positive. This was the result of a bag search triggered only because I am an involuntary medical opt-out and I can't use the NoS. The nitro wasn't detected by a positive swab, it was detected by a TSO reading labels.

Had there been no mandatory bag search because I can't assume and hold the position in the NoS, there might not have been a problem (I had flown with them before many times). Had the TSO doing the bag search rifled and swabbed the bag in the usual way, there would have been no problem. It was only because the TSO was reading labels that the prohibited substance was discovered.

There is nothing on the TSA website that grants an exception.

747FC

There have been at least two "successful" cases in which liquid explosives are known to have brought down or seriously damaged commercial airliners, Korean Air 858 and Phillippine Air 434, being just two examples. There are several other known plots using liquid explosives that have been foiled. The liquid ban was not a "knee jerk reaction," but one that --while causing endless hassles to the traveling public-- has kept other planes and people from going down. My hat is off to the intelligence agencies that are least trying to find ways to cope with evolving threats.