Two recent articles, one in the May/June issue of Photo Techniques and one from the editorial in May’s Shutterbug, describe new “Film-killer X-ray” security equipment being used in “certain large American and foreign airports” which destroys film, exposed and otherwise. The new equipment is InVision Technologies CTX-5000 baggage scanner which the FAA is paying for (they cost a cool $900,000 each!). On MOST domestic flights, only checked baggage is at risk, they say, but on international flights, “carry-on baggage may be at risk as well.” When asked, an InVision official acknowledged that the “rate of scanned films that are damaged is 100%.”
The FAA will not give out the list of the airports with these new X-ray machines for security reasons but InVision has a Web site, which posts the domestic list — no help for the foreign ones, though. So hang on to your film bags folks.
There is nothing we can find on magnetic and semiconductor storage media (floppy disks, hard disks and checked computers), but at these high doses, magnetic etc. media are also a possible area (hopefully remotely possible, only) of effects. Various individuals are writing InVision directly to see if they will responsibly answer to the magnetic media and EPROM/chip issue. EPROMS (see WFTD EPROM above) and associated semiconductor storage devices are the heart of many musical instruments.