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TSA Meets Major Milestone In Screening Cargo On Passenger Aircraft

News & Happenings

October 15, 2008

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Photo of an cargo being loaded into an airplaneFour full months before its first Congressional deadline, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is currently screening all cargo on narrow body, passenger carrying aircraft. Narrow bodies, like the Boeing 737s, Airbus A320s and thousands of regional jets make up more than 90 percent of all passenger carrying aircraft in the U.S.

This milestone is a significant one en route to screening all cargo on passenger planes. Congress has mandated through the 9/11 law that 50 percent of cargo on passenger carrying aircraft be screened by February 2009 and 100 percent of cargo be screened by August 2010.

The cargo on these aircraft is currently being screened by explosive detection systems, physical inspections, canines and other methods. These are the same methods that will be used to screen cargo on other aircraft.

Other measures currently in place include screening all cargo at hundreds of small airports from coast to coast, screening cargo requested for specific flights or destinations, deploying more than 500 hundred specially trained explosive detection canines to airports, allowing only verified shippers to place cargo on passenger carrying airplanes and aggressively inspecting cargo operations with hundreds of inspectors.