Passengers filled Terminal C Jan. 3, 2010 after a security breach. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz)MANHATTAN — A busy terminal at Newark Airport was locked down for five hours Sunday night after a man walked the wrong way through a checkpoint.
The lockdown, which came nine days after a failed terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound flight, wreaked havoc on travelers returning to the city from the holidays.
Flights were still delayed Monday morning as the airport played catch up.
A spokeswoman for the TSA Ann Davis told The Star-Ledger of Newark that the agency halted all screening at Terminal C about 5:20 p.m. Sunday when a man walked the wrong way down an exit lane.
"TSA was notified and we immediately halted screening at the security checkpoints in Terminal C and worked with the Port Authority to pull the surveillance tapes in the area to determine what transpired and see if we could identify the individual in question," Davis said.
Surveillance video showed the man entering the restricted area and then exiting it 20 minutes later before leaving the airport, but officials have not been able to locate him, the Associated Press reported.
The security scare made life miserable for Manhattan residents flying back home.
Midtown East resident Susan Schuppe got stuck on a Continental flight from Denver. After getting a brief explanation from the plane's captain, she and her fellow passengers sat for an hour on the Newark tarmac and were moved to another terminal before they were allowed to get off the plane.
She got home to her apartment in Midtown East at 3 a.m., three hours after her plane landed.
"The really disappointing thing was that apart from the captain, there weren't enough people to explain what was happening," Schuppe, 36, said.
The most security recent breakdown came as the federal government announced its toughest procedures yet for passengers arriving from overseas.
While all travelers will face patdowns and body scans, passengers from a list of 14 nations — including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen — will have to undergo extra screening.
mrmod | January 4, 2010