Air Safety Week's Threats And Scares

Air Safety Week,  April 10, 2006  

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DATE & SITE: March 31 -- Nashville Int'l Airport (BNA), Tenn.
AREA*: 3
CIRCUMSTANCES: A software glitch brought down the x-ray machines and
magnetometers for five hours.
RESULT: From the time the checkpoints normally reopen at 3:30 a.m. local time
until the time the equipment was brought back online at 8:30 a.m., TSA employees
had to search bags by hand and use hand-held detectors. Checkpoint efficiency
soon suffered, to put it mildly. As the sun came up, passenger lines began
snaking outside into the parking lots. Individual flight delays were running up
to an hour and, in some of the worst cases, passengers were offered refunds.
Editor's note: This was the incident that was soon heard across the nation. All
or most other U.S. commercial airports were alerted of Nashville's problems,
because many of them use the same software. TSA also referred to this incident
an "isolated event."

* Codes where security incident originated: 1 - Roadway/parking lot/off airport
2 - Public ticket lobby/baggage claim  3 - Security checkpoint 4 - Sterile
concourse/gate area 5 - Checked baggage/cargo screening  6 - Inside aircraft 7 -
Airside operations area  8 - Airport perimeter  9 - Unknown Compiled by Air
Safety Week from various news sources

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