A man who bolted through a security checkpoint Thursday afternoon at O’Hare International Airport forced an evacuation of the United Airlines terminal, sending thousands of passengers into the street, snarling air traffic at O’Hare and causing a domino effect of flight delays across the country.
The mystery man “disappeared into the crowd,” said United spokesman Joe Hopkins. Airline officials, who had no idea whether the man was a terrorist or simply a tardy passenger intent on catching a plane, decided to take no chances.
An estimated 6,000 passengers poured out of the terminal at the behest of police, joined by scores of employees from shops and kiosks. For two hours they milled outside, some chatting on cellular phones. Others perched on suitcases and duffel bags and waited for two hours as security and law enforcement officials scoured the terminal and more than 50 planes at its gates, searching for the man and anything he may have left behind.
But officials said they found no bombs or guns–and had made no arrests late Thursday.
At least 120 United flights were canceled and scores more were delayed, officials said. About 27,000 passengers nationwide were affected. The airline’s schedule was not expected to get back to normal until Friday morning.
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Other airlines were not affected, federal and city officials said.
While city and airline officials said the airport’s security system worked, the delays that resulted from the evacuation could prompt a re-evaluation of security procedures, said city Aviation Commissioner Mary Rose Loney.
“We will reassess measures we can take to further enhance our security plan,” Loney said.
Andrew Plews, general manager for media relations at United Airlines, said the airline would likewise “look at all circumstances surrounding security. But let’s be clear here: This is an individual who did something he should not have done.”
The man “presumably was one of the thousands of people in the concourse asked to go back through security and into the street,” Hopkins said.
“It was a bad situation,” said Hinsdale resident Albert Sunseri, 57, whose plane from San Francisco sat on the tarmac at O’Hare for almost three hours before being allowed to approach the terminal. “How one man could inconvenience thousands of people is beyond me.”
The incident began just before 3 p.m.
The man, who had been in the lower-level baggage claim area, walked up a stairwell and through a door that bypassed a security checkpoint leading to the gates, officials said.
He then darted past a security guard posted at the doorway.
As the man passed, the unarmed guard shouted at him to halt. The guard chased the man but could not catch him, officials said.
“This is clearly an individual who disregarded instructions to halt, who clearly fled,” Loney said. “This is somebody who willfully breached the security area.”
The man was described as young, olive-skinned, weighing about 150 pounds and standing between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet tall. He wore a long-sleeved green shirt and tan pants, as well as a bushy mustache.
Airline officials then called in city Aviation Department security personnel, Chicago police and members of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Civil Aviation Security Team.
A preliminary search proved futile and, about 3:45 p.m., United officials decided to evacuate.
Chicago police brought in a bomb detection unit and canine units to help in the security sweep.
Though incidents of people running past a checkpoint and refusing to stop are rare and have not taken place in recent memory at O’Hare, evacuation in such a case is “standard procedure,” Hopkins said. Other airports, notably those serving Los Angeles and Detroit, have had similar problems in recent years.
An official of another airline, who asked not to be identified, believed that all carriers would consider such a precaution “normal protocol.”
An FAA spokesman refused to comment, referring all questions to United and city officials.
Officials reopened the terminal around 5:45 p.m., setting off another chaotic scene.
Passengers stood four and five deep in line to use telephones. Emotions ranged from anger and frustration to patience and understanding.
“I’d rather be here waiting than in the middle of a disaster,” declared Daniel Thornton, a flight attendant from St. Joseph, Mo. “I’m glad they acted on it.”
Veronica Inouye, a San Francisco-area resident who had been at the airport since noon, had a different reaction.
“This is my first experience through O’Hare and it’ll be my last,” she fumed.
“It doesn’t make sense to me that United would stop their business because some guy ran somewhere,” said Burt Kaplan of Highland Park, who had been waiting to meet his daughter and four grandchildren, bound for Chicago from Los Angeles. “You’ve got how many thousands of people who are inconvenienced here today because of one guy? The time that United has stolen is staggering.”
Some passengers were held captive aboard planes on the tarmac as the drama unfolded inside the terminal.
Andrea Zinder and her two young sons were making their way from Los Angeles to Syracuse, N.Y., and had the misfortune of landing at O’Hare just after the incident took place.
Their plane sat for two hours because of what their pilot told them was a security breach, and flight attendants put on a movie to help passengers pass the time.
When the crisis had passed, Zinder emerged from the plane hungry, tired and trying to find her luggage. “The flight crew did everything they could to make us comfortable, but there was no food,” she said.
On another flight, Chuck Price, 66, one of a group of Naperville residents returning from a tour of the Pacific Northwest, said an intercom announcement about the security breach shortly after landing halted passengers who were wrestling baggage from overhead compartments.
“Everybody was resigned to their fate,” said Price. Another member of the group, Pat Carter, 65, said the captain’s announcement evoked a collective sigh and a scramble for cell phones to alert friends, loved ones and employers to the delay.
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“Everyone was trying to get through, trying to get through. It was like being on the board of trade,” Carter said.
Nor were such scenes unique to Chicago. In Minneapolis, telecommunications consultant Scott Munsey, 40, of Sommerville, Mass., said the nearly full 737 he was to fly in to Chicago came to a halt shortly after leaving the gate.
“We were on the runway and were getting ready to taxi and they stopped and said, `We’re stopped because there was a security problem in Chicago,’ ” said Munsey, who called the Tribune from the plane.
For the next hour and 10 minutes, the plane waited on the tarmac, hoping to be cleared to take off for Chicago.
Just after 4 p.m., the flight returned to the gate in Minneapolis, and passengers filed off to ticket counters around the airport to try to catch other flights.
At O’Hare, airline employees asked customers who missed connecting flights or anyone
just waiting in line for tickets to use courtesy phones or call a
toll-free number to get more information.
By 8:30 p.m., a line nearly a city block long had formed in front of the United customer service counter, packed full of travelers waiting to find out what had become of their connecting flights or their luggage.
“The kids are going back to school. We were supposed to go to the Jersey shore tomorrow for the weekend. I don’t think we are now,” said Hugh MacLachlan, 49, of New Jersey, who had stood in line for two hours after waiting in a plane on the tarmac at O’Hare for two hours. His connecting flight was canceled.
“If I have to fly to Phoenix to catch a flight to Philadelphia, I’ll do it,” he said.
Abby Kanter, 60, of Los Angeles was flying into Chicago to attend a bridal shower but was also stalled after landing.
From the plane, Kanter said she called her sister-in-law in Highland Park, who called back frequently with updates from news reports.
“There was nothing you could do,” Kanter said. “You were stuck. You couldn’t mutiny.”
Sue Potts of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and fellow passengers who were stuck on a plane on the tarmac for two hours were treated to a Sean Connery movie.
Its title: “Entrapment.”