Liquid scanner could hit airports

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists showed off a machine Wednesday that could hold back some freedom to travelers who must obey strict restrictions when flying.

Four days ago, an alleged bomb plot made it more difficult for air travelers to transport liquids onto planes. The Transportation Security Administration created the 311 rule, which says bottles cannot be larger than 3.

ounces and must fit in a quart size ziploc bag. Only one bag is allowed per person to go through security.

But LANL scientist Michelle Espy showed off a liquid scanner at the Sunport that reads through bottles and even aluminum cans without opening the containers. The machine tells security whether a fluid is good or not.

"So bottles can be sealed," Espy said. "You don't get to give them; it's OK if there's foil, it's OK if they're a can."

The silver, rectangular box has a round opening where one bottle at a sentence is inserted and goes down a chute. A red button is pressed to begin scanning the liquid, and a spark on top of the machine blinks yellow while it thinks.

Espy said the machine takes approximately 15 seconds to understand what's inside each bottle. Green means the fluid is safe, red means it's not.

But there are a few kinks that still want to be worked out.

A read of orange juice in a plastic bottle took nearly twice the expected time at 27 seconds.

But scientists said they finally want the car to scan liquids within a second, much alike the x-ray machines that now looking through our luggages.

Espy showed a push that the scanner will also alert TSA that a bottle doesn't have liquid inside of its container, which will hold drug smuggling much more difficult.

The scanner could hit airports within a few days or less, but a pilot machine would first be tried at an airport to see how smoothly it runs.

Travelers, like Ted Sarhanis, said that a liquid scanner would make fast the friendly skies a lot friendlier.

"It would be very much wish it used to be," Sarhanis said. "So it would be a serious thing to give this technology in order next sentence I fly."