February 07, 2003

Did you hear about that

Did you hear about that woman who waltzed through an unmanned security checkpoint at SFO and boarded her flight with unscreened carry-on baggage? She was arrested when her flight arrived in Baltimore. By the time airport security sprang into action (a couple of hours later), she was long gone. Nevertheless, they decided to evacuate the entire terminal anyway.

The system, concedes Security Director Ed Gomez, is "not flawless." No?

My favorite part of this story is the classic SF Chron-style headline: Skirt Scares SFO Silly. (Though Skirt Skirts Security would have been good, too.)

My second favorite is this quote:

According to TSA spokesman Nico Melendez, at least part of the blame lies with the woman, who chose not to wait in line and, instead, slipped through a closed checkpoint.

"TSA can't afford to take shortcuts with security," Melendez said. "We don't expect passengers to do that either."

"One of the responsibilities passengers have is to arrive at the airport in a timely manner so they don't have a need to take shortcuts through the security process," he said.

Posted by Dr. Frank at February 7, 2003 12:04 PM | TrackBack