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Newark Airport Locked Down, Creating Havoc for Manhattanites Returning Home

By DNAinfo Staff on January 4, 2010 6:42am  | Updated on January 4, 2010 4:28pm

Passengers filled Terminal C Jan. 3, 2010 after a security breach.
Passengers filled Terminal C Jan. 3, 2010 after a security breach.
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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 comes 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 New Jersey Star Ledger that the agency halted all screening at Terminal C about 5:20 p.m. 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.

Security screening resumed about 10:30 p.m., but officials had not located the man by late last night.

The most recent scare 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.