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Russian airline bombings a wake-up call to regulators and industry

In the wake of the downing of two Russian civil aircraft by terrorist bombs, Australian advanced explosive detection company, QRSciences, at the end of August repeated its earlier call to regulators and the aviation industry alike to place much more importance than has been evidenced in recent years on checkpoint screening.

"The events that took place in August represent yet another wake-up call to both regulators and the aviation industry that checkpoint screening is the real Achilles Heel of the security system," comments Kevin Russeth, CEO, QRSciences. "Seemingly those who carried out this terrible act did so using explosives containing Hexogen (also known as RDX), which is readily detectable with the correct equipment. Had such equipment been in use at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow there is a strong possibility that this tragedy would have been prevented."

QRSciences, along with others, remain concerned about the weaknesses in checkpoint screening, specifically the limited application of a readily available explosive detection capability which significantly weakens the global civil aviation security system and puts the lives of air crew and passengers at risk. In its final report, the US 9/11 Commission strongly supported this belief, stating that while checkpoint screening is considered the most important and obvious layer of security, many deadly and dangerous items are 'hard to distinguish in an X-ray machine from innocent everyday items'.

"The small amounts of high explosives needed to cause such devastation are nigh on impossible to detect by the standard X-ray devices commonly used to screen passenger hand baggage at checkpoints. For this reason we believe it is incumbent upon regulators and the industry to move fast and introduce a complementary explosive detection capability at the checkpoint which screens every piece of hand luggage being taken aboard aircraft for the presence of such compounds," adds Norman Shanks, an aviation security expert and former security manager at London's Heathrow airport.

QRSciences offers a nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) system for use at airport checkpoints. The system adds a highly capable explosive detection capability and can accurately identify a wide range of previously difficult to detect explosive compounds including RDX in small amounts.

The NQR system comprises a functional QR assembly including coil, transmit and receive electronics, signal acquisition, signal processing and control subsystems and operates as a standalone unit with its own user interface.

QRSciences technology has been successfully tested by the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as an Advanced Technology 'AT' explosive detection system. The technology has also been extensively trialled and tested over the past four years by authorities, regulators and airports in the US, Canada, European Union, including the UK and Australia.

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