"Gun scare forces evacuation of Philadelphia airport terminals"

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Gun scare forces evacuation of airport terminals
BY CATHERINE LUCEY
The Philadelphia (PA) Daily News


Thousands of people were stalled at Philadelphia International Airport
on Wednesday when police evacuated most of the terminals because they
thought a gun may have gotten past security.

A spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration said later
the uproar had been caused by a "technical glitch" involving one of the
X-ray screening machines.

The spokesman, Mark Fierberg, did not elaborate, but Philadelphia police
said a worker had seen the image of what looked like a small-caliber
revolver on the X-ray screen.

The drama began at 2:25 p.m. when a worker for the federal TSA told
airport police that a gun might have passed through a checkpoint at
Terminal C, Philadelphia police said.

The worker saw that an X-ray screen had an image of what looked like a
small-caliber revolver, police said. It was a saved image, and the item
was no longer on the X-ray belt.

Airport police began to investigate whether a gun had gotten into the
terminal. At 2:45 p.m., they stopped all flights and evacuated terminals
A, B, C, D and F, police said. Terminal E was not evacuated because it
is not connected to the others.

But at 3:05 p.m., technicians determined that the picture of the gun was
something called a Threat Image Projection, police said. That means an
image of a gun was sent to the machine, but no gun had actually been in
the terminal.

Passengers were then allowed back into the airport. The FBI and other
agencies were notified that the incident was under control.

Airport spokesman Mark Pesce would not comment on the incident.


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