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![handle is hein.gao/gaobabkia0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
A--
COMPTROLLER .
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20545
B-105965 MAR 2 1973
The Honorable Claude Pepper
Lb House of Representatives
Dear Mr. Pepper:
As requested in your letter of October 2, 1972, we examined the
Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) August and September 1972 ]
procurement 6f weapon detectors for.the airc.ft antihijackin gpro-
gii. nd' the con'sideration FAA gave to purchasing detectors from
b Infinetics, Inc. Before the Government procured these detectors,
several airlines had purchased detection equipment from Infinetics,
Inc., to be used under a voluntary FAA-sponsored passenger screening
program.
In May 1972 the Department of Transportation requested that the
Conres appropriate funds for FAA to acquire and furnish weapon de-
tectors to airlines because such action was needed to expedite acqui-
sition and use of detectors at airports. At that time FAA decided
that the detectors would have to detect both ferrous and nonferrous
metals. According to FAA, this decision resulted from a Department
of the Treasury weapons expert's estimate that at least 15 percent
of the hand guns in public use contained mostly nonferrous metal
and from recent technology applications that made it possible to
detect nonferrous metal weapons. The Department of the Treasury
expert advised us that he based the percentage of nonferrous hand
guns on his observations of confiscated weapons.
During 1971 and 1972 the Department of Transportation and FAA
evaluated the performance of major handheld and walkthrough weapon
detector systems. In July 1972 FAA established a performance goal
which provided that detectors should identify at least 85 percent
of passengers carrying weapons with less than a 15-percent false
alarm rate for passengers not carrying weapons. During July and
August 1972, FAA.tested walkthrough weapon detectors produced by
several manufacturers against this performance goal with the
following results.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.gao/gaobabkia0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)