Dutch to install scanners for all flights to US
03/01/2010
Passengers flying to the United States from the Netherlands will have to undergo body scans after a bid to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner from Amsterdam, the interior minister said Wednesday.
The Hague--Guusje ter Horst told reporters that all available scanning machines at the city's Schiphol Airport would be put into use in January.
"It has been decided to use body scanners at Schiphol for all flights to the United States," she told a press conference.
"All 15 of the scanners currently available at Schiphol will be put into use within the next three weeks," once new software has been installed, the minister said.
This would "significantly improve passenger security as the machines can detect non-metal objects." Security at Schiphol is "good", she said.
Her announcement comes amid investigations into how a 23-year-old Nigerian was able to board a jet in Lagos bound for Amsterdam and then take a connecting flight to Detroit,
while wearing underpants containing explosive chemicals.
Ter Horst said the investigation had so far failed to establish if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had visited the Netherlands in the past.
The Dutch minister told reporters that the plot to blow up the plane over Detroit had been fairly professionally planned but that its execution was "amateurish".
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