"Intruder breaches Sydney's airport security"

Thursday, July 8, 2004

Intruder breaches airport security
By Alexandra Smith and Scott Rochfort
Australia - The Sydney Morning Herald


Hundreds of passengers were delayed for hours at Sydney's international
airport yesterday after a man managed to beat all security checks and
reach a Qantas departure gate without a boarding pass.

It was the second major security scare at Australia's busiest airport in
the past week.

Last night Australian Federal Police questioned the man, who was not
stopped until he tried to slip past the boarding gate of Los
Angeles-bound Qantas flight 149, due to take off at 9.40am.

British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand,
Air Pacific, JAL, Air Vanuatu and China Eastern passengers were ordered
off planes and out of the departure area after the breach was
discovered.

All travellers who had passed through customs and immigration
checkpoints then had to be rescreened, causing significant flight
delays, a spokesman for the airport, Scott Sloan, said.

Mr Sloan said the man was found in the departure area of the
international terminal without the necessary documents.

Eight international Qantas flights were delayed because of the scare,
with passengers forced to wait between one and four hours until they
could get back on their aircraft.

"This man walked around the [boarding pass] machines and started to go
down the aerobridge," said Qantas spokesman Michael Sharp. The plane
took off almost two hours later, but several other flights experienced
much longer delays.

Police later took the man to a hospital. A spokesman said the man's
medical assessment might be a factor in the investigation. 

The latest incident follows a security breach at the airport last
Wednesday, when a female passenger boarding a Korean Air flight to Seoul
returned a positive reading to a random explosives trace test. Her
flight was later allowed to take off even though her luggage on board
had not been checked.

Two security scares at Sydney Airport in less than a week demonstrated
that security systems were far from foolproof, the federal Opposition
transport spokesman, Martin Ferguson, said.

His spokeswoman said the Opposition wanted an investigation into the
breaches. "Apparent breaches to security protocols are obviously very
concerning to us," the spokeswoman said.

An aviation security expert from the University of Western Sydney, Don
Robertson, said airlines were becoming increasingly focused on
turnaround times of aircraft 

"There is a frantic nature of getting people on planes quickly,"
Associate Professor Robertson said. "Sydney Airport has a good
reputation, and security breaches are something that the world's busiest
airports are grappling with."

Qantas passengers on a Hong Kong-bound flight on Tuesday night were also
delayed for several hours after the captain was alerted to a possible
operational problem with the aircraft after take-off. The airline said
the pilot "erred on the side of safety" and returned to Sydney. 

No significant problems were found with the aircraft and it was back in
service yesterday morning, Qantas said.


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