Flight goers from all over had the misfortune on Thursday, May 29th, at Metro Detroit airport around 9 pm to experience a live airport shutdown caused by a man forcing his way past a TSA checkpoint and back into the terminal, while the man was arrested the lockdown contiued for several hours.
While the man had been taken into custody by the TSA and likely held for questioning, the airport was immediately thrown into lockdown. With barricades being thrown up and passengers not being allowed to leave the airport, the chaos caused both missed flights and massive traffic as people were still arriving to either leave on their own trips or pick up friends and relatives.
After a grueling two hour wait the TSA finally lifted the lockdown around 11, likely causing an even greater amount of chaos as people tried to leave the airport through the people just trying to catch their flights. The TSA had spent the time searching around past the checkpoint around where the man had been caught. The fear held by the TSA was likely that he had rushed back in to plant a bomb or something just as harmful.
The TSA likely performed exactly as is dictated by current standards, and it's understandable in this day and age to overplay safety policies. It seems somewhat of an overkill however that they held these people back from their families and their planned departures because one man, likely not even acting on any kind of malicious intent, decided to break the rules.
Christian Smith, the man that caused the incident, was to blame for the delay of 33 flights Thursday night. Airport spokesman Michael Conway stated that the man was able to post bond Friday morning. The further delay of passengers was avoided when the airport security allowed those that had already been screened to not have be resent through security Conway say.
By Friday morning McNamara was functioning normally, but passengers will likely not be forgetting this incident anytime soon.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
