Pax attempts DIY security "test"!
Southwest Concourse at Baltimore Airport Evacuated
BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Federal authorities evacuated the Southwest Airlines concourse at Baltimore-Washington International Airport on Saturday after a woman tried to "test'' airport security at a checkpoint, officials said.
One Boeing 737 had pushed back from the gate and two others were boarding at about 7:15 a.m., when the Federal Aviation Administration ordered scores of travelers out of the airport's 16-gate Concourse B for a security sweep that kept the facility shut for nearly three hours.
Passengers then had to be re-screened before being allowed back onto their planes after the concourse reopened at about 9:50 a.m.
There were no details from the FAA or airport officials about what happened at the checkpoint at BWI, located about 10 miles outside the city of Baltimore.
"An individual was trying to test security, and she has been detained,'' said FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto. Authorities said the woman was later released.
"It is another example of a zero tolerance policy that's been in place since last week. If security isn't operating properly, we shut the facility down,'' Takemoto said.
Security has been tightened at U.S. airports since the Sept. 11 attacks in which hijackers armed with box cutters hijacked four commercial airliners and crashed three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania after an apparent struggle between passengers and their captors.
Federal officials, including President Bush, have since pronounced the airline travel system safe. But authorities have been embarrassed several times by individuals smuggling box cutters and other banned items through checkpoints in order to call attention to lingering security gaps