Officials from Los Angeles International Airport said Tuesday that a message on flight status screens that warned passengers to evacuate was accidentally put up.
This sparked panic amongst the passengers, who were already on edge as a result of recent national tragedies, including the Boston Marathon bombings and the explosions in Texas, which led to suspended air travel and widespread fear.
On Monday at 9:47, passengers in the Tom Bradley International Terminal saw monitors behind ticketing counters that bore a menacing message: "am emergency has been declared in the terminal. Please evacuate."
They immediately notified police, who rapidly splayed themselves out in efforts to find whoever was responsible for hacking the system.
LAX personnel thought the display was the work of a sophisticated hacker that was in the airport, but were unsure whether or not someone had accessed the database remotely reports the Los Angeles Times.
After a deeper look into the situation, it was revealed that an airline contractor with authorized access to the monitors accidentally superseded their normal displays of flight status.
"After the mistake was discovered, airport staff removed the message from all the monitors by 9:54 pm," LAX spokesperson Nancy Castles told the Times in an email.
Castles went on to say that the airport would try its best to avoid mistakes like these, especially in a time of national fear.
"The airline contract employee was programming airline check-in information into a set of monitors for a particular flight when he accidentally activated the pre-programmed emergency terminal evacuation message," Castles continued. "The airport's information technology staff will be looking at ways to ensure this accident does not happen again in the future."
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