Yesterday I was at LAX, Terminal 4. It was about 8:45-8:50AM. I had just passed through an extremely light security line. I moved over to the benches to the right of the security people to put myself back together. I'd moved about thirty-forty feet away from the security section on my way to Starbucks when suddenly I heard what sounded like a huge yell and then a massive amount of simultaneous footsteps. I turned back around and all of the security personnel had formed a barrier. If they all reached out and held hands (which they didn't), they would have been able to prevent anyone from going in or out of this area. All of the other passengers like myself who had just passed through stopped dead in our tracks. Should we hit the deck? Run for our lives? Pull our shirts over our mouths in case there was about to be trouble breathing? It was scary, scary, scary. Whoever was on one side was there; whoever was on the other side was there and too bad if half your family was in a different section from where you were. But then I noticed a couple of them giggling and realized it was a drill.

Did anyone else on Flyertalk witness this yesterday?

Did anyone else at Flyertalk witness this in other airports?

On one hand, I guess I'm glad there's a protocol in place so that if I'm ever at LAX when a real situation arises, I know they have a plan, and it's been tested.

I also realize passengers are moving through there every minute of every day so it's not as though they could test this in off-hours. Heck, they probably consider Sunday morning as being off-hours - maybe it is?

But, it still scared the living crap out of me and everyone else around me and made me edgier than usual before my LAX-YYZ flight.

Thoughts?