USS Clueless reviews the security breach at Atlanta. Summary: guy runs through the security points and vanishes into the airport, causing it to be shut down for hours, with massive effects on air traffic.
(The gent in question says he left his camera bag at the terminal, recovered it, saw the long security lines to get back to the gate, was afraid of missing his flight, and simply ran down the up escalator.)
Stephen den Beste (who runs the USS Clueless site) asks, quite properly, two questions:
1. Why was it physically possible for this guy to get past security?
2. What were all those security guards we keep seeing doing at the time? In other words, why didn’t someone shoot the guy, if they couldn’t tackle or otherwise restrain him?
Remember, the presumption in such a case is that the person is a danger to everyone in the airport. That’s why they shut everything down (now, post 9-11) when things like this happen.
In answer to both questions:
Peter Collins, an executive with International Total Services (ITS), the security firm for Hartsfield, said the man was first stopped by two ITS security guards when he tried to go down the up escalator. The man was told to go through the nearby main security checkpoint. He started to walk away, but spun around and sprinted past the two guards and ran down the up escalator.
Asked why the guards didn’t physically stop him, Collins said, “They don’t have the authority to touch any passengers. They can only sound an alert.”
So the answer is, the “security” people are there just to give directions, and to sound the alarm. Great.
The fellow who caused the security breach noted that, since he’d already gone through security once, he didn’t see any harm in bypassing it. That’s because folks aren’t taking this seriously. And with good reason. Frankly, this particular idiot would have been a good object lesson to help others learn to do so.
I presume the proud members of Georgia’s National Guard who were there did not see the incident, or I will be even more disappointed. Though that would beg the question of why they weren’t in a position to see it.