Terminal C had to be locked down this morning, when more than 100 flights were canceled and dozens delayed, after officials realized a passenger had made it through a security checkpoint without being properly screened, officials said.
Service continued at Terminals A and B, but the lockdown at Terminal C, which resumed normal operations at noon, delayed flights and caused all passengers departing from that terminal to be visually checked again, said Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the Port Authority Police.
A separate, earlier incident at Terminal C caused officials to suspend screening of oversize baggage for just under an hour, before an Essex County bomb squad cleared the bag.
The three-hour lockdown, which began at 8:45 a.m., caused a massive backup at security checkpoints in the terminal. Hundreds of passengers waited in long lines that snaked from check points all the way back to stairways and escalators.
After a search, it was determined that the passenger departed Newark Liberty Airport on a United Airlines flight to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement. That flight landed in Cleveland without incident.
Normal screening operations resumed at Noon. But by then, the incident caused more than 65 departing flights to be delayed, and more than 100 flights to be canceled, said Christen David, a United spokeswoman. David said the airline would work with passengers to book them onto new flights as soon as possible.
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I suppose it would be a bitul zman to ask why or how the TSA boss at Terminal C permitted not one but two serious breaches of security within as many hours?
The inconvenience caused by allowing a passenger to make it through a security checkpoint without being properly screened, and the TSA bosses’ decision to suspend screening of oversize baggage for just under an hour is a scandal of untold proportions. On top of that there is also the massive loss caused by 100 flights being canceled and dozens having to be delayed.
Let us also not forget the losses caused to the unfortunate passengers caught up in this embarrassing farrago whose flights our of Newark were cancelled, and those even more harassed passengers who not only missed their flights ex-EWR but also lost out on any connecting flights further down the line.
And who pays for all this? Not the federal government, not the State of New Jersey, not the TSA but you and me – the tax payers.
Needless to say, the TSA manager at Newark will keep his job.