There's no relationship between gunpowder and TNT but lots of things will
fool these kind of detectors. In one case the coating on playing cards is
reputed to have caused a positive swab from a suspect's hands.
AndrewF
>This device detects (at least) explosives. I know this from personal
>experience, since I set it off one time. I was leaving from the
>Minneapolis airport and this young guy checked my laptop case with the
>pad, then put it in the machine. When the readout came, his eyes just
>about came out of his head and he quickly ran and got his supervisor. He
>re-did the test, and found the same result. The machine indicated TNT on
>my laptop case! The only reason I could think of as to why it was there
>is that while visiting my brother-in-law who reloads his own ammunition,
>some trace of gunpowder found it's way onto my case. Anyhoo, back at the
>airport, they checked for TNT inside the case and on my laptop, didn't
>find anything, and let us on our way. Even then, I couldn't help but
>think that maybe that was being a little bit lax, since I could have just
>done a very good job cleaning off the laptop, but a little sloppy on the
>case. I'm sure in other countries that would have resulted in a lengthy
>delay while the rest of our luggage was thoroughly searched.
>
>Mark Marr-Lyon
>
>Mike Veglia wrote:
>>For film they will no doubt continue to do hand checks and you'll always
>>be able to carryon something the size of a diaper bag or purse so I'm
>>not too worried about film. On the subject of film, they had some kind
>>of a sensatized pad they layed against the ziplock bag my film was in
>>that then went into some kind of bomb detecting box the size of an old
>>large microwave oven. The pad had to process in there a while and after
>>about a minute or so they said I could be on my way. Not sure how that
>>worked...the pad had no physical contact with the film and the film did
>>not go into any detectors.
>
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