March 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is installing full-body scanners that can detect bombs under passengers’ clothing at 11 more airports following an attempted Christmas Day attack, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. Scanners will be added at airports including Chicago’s O’Hare, and in Boston, Los Angeles and Charlotte, North Carolina. The Transportation Security Administration said it plans to install 1,000 machines by the end of next year.
“We are enhancing our capability to detect and disrupt threats of terrorism across the nation,” Napolitano said in a statement today. The agency already has 40 machines at 19 airports.
The government is accelerating use of the scanners after Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight on approach to Detroit Dec. 25 by igniting explosives in his underpants.
The agency purchased 150 machines last year for $25 million from OSI Systems Inc.’s Rapiscan unit of Hawthorne, California. They will be deployed to the 11 airports, starting today with Boston and within a week in Chicago. The devices already in place are made by New York-based L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.
OSI rose 58 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $30.86 at 11:44 a.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. L-3 climbed 73 cents to $93.20 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Airports also getting the scanners are San Diego, San Jose and Oakland, California; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Cincinnati; Kansas City, Missouri; and Columbus, Ohio, according to the Napolitano statement.
40 Machines Already
The government plans to purchase 300 more machines this year. Companies in addition to OSI and L-3 that may benefit from increased use of scanners include Smiths Group Plc and Safran SA. London-based Smiths is the world’s biggest maker of airport scanners. Safran, based in Paris, produces biometric technologies, such as fingerprint scanners.
The U.S. plans to spend $529.3 million in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 to acquire 500 of the scanners and hire 5,355 people to operate them, Gale Rossides, acting chief of the Transportation Security Administration, told a congressional panel yesterday.
Using full-body imaging technology is voluntary for passengers. Those who don’t wish to receive a scanning may opt for a pat-down or a search with a hand-held detector, according to the security agency.
