Liquid scanner could hit airports

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

Four years 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 bigger 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 fluent is respectable or not.

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

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

Espy said the machine takes about 15 seconds to see what's inside each bottle. Green means the liquid is safe, red means it's not.

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

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

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

Espy showed a button 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 years or less, but a pilot machine would first be tested at an airport to see how smoothly it runs.

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

"It would be very much like it used to be," Sarhanis said. "So it would be a good matter to hold this technology in society next time I fly."