Anybody have any details on the so-called lockdown at IAD last afternoon (2 May)?

I got off UA975, entered the US, and while in line for scanning, TSA told us that nothing was taking off or landing in the whole airport, and nobody could get scanned until this was resolved. About 45 minutes, maybe an hour, after they stopped, they resumed scanning. As it happens, my flight did take off during the "lockdown", and the next one would have as well, except the pilots were in the main terminal and they weren't allowed to go to C/D.

I didn't hear about that, but these days it very well could have been that someone had the sniffles

at iad, it could be anything from a tsa screw up, a tsa equipment malfunction, a tsa a "test" or even "vip movement" (tho that usually causes a ground stop and not a "screening stop"). perhaps a move to travel safety and security would bet better exposure?

not sure if i was in the wrong place or whatever, but i was in iad yesterday from like 10 am to 6pm and didnt here or see anything out of the ordinary

http://dcist.com/2009/05/lockdown_at_dulles_airport.php

Very interesting - particularly the timing. It shows there were certainly United departures going on at the same time we were told departures had halted. Also, it seems like it was the whole airport, and not just the C/D gates.

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I was at IAD from 11-2:30 yesterday, mainly in the B concourse, and did not notice anything

I too was on UA 975 GVA-IAD yesterday and got caught in the "lockdown" standing in a long, crowded queue in the no-man's land between Customs/Immigration and security re-screening. The line between the snaky barricades just stopped moving.

The public address system was not used to inform us of what was happening, but a man in coat-and-tie (not the TSA uniform) eventually made a short and very hard to hear announcement from the side of the queue that "a passenger had breeched security" and that no passenger screenings would occur until that passenger was found in the airport. Also, don't worry because no flights will be leaving.

Although it was cool outside, the entire Customs/Immigration area and especially the area leading to security was very hot and humid. Bad enough if you have a place to sit, but harder if all you can do is stand or maybe sit on the floor. A couple of older people in the line were close to keeling over -- one very hard working young TSA guy took a lot of trouble to run and bring chairs and water for them and try to help them out. Kudos to him -- no kudos to the rest of TSA and Dulles airport for trapping upwards of 150 people in a closely confined space with poor ventilation, little information, and in the midst of a supposedly impending pandemic. There was a big fan (busy recycling hot air) and an outside door nearby -- maybe someone from TSA could have opened the door and used the fan to blow fresh air inside?

I think the problem with the premise (or outright lie) that "no flight are leaving" is that while it may be true that no flights leave during the lockdown, many people get backed up in queues during the freeze and those queues don't all unfreeze at the same rate. Apparently, flights are free to leave as soon as the problem is resolved and if they are close to pushback, then they may do so whether or not passengers are left behind. It did seem that TSA tried their best to clear the queue through security quickly after screenings resumed. Judging by the huge queue I observed at passenger services later, there were more than a few left behind.

In my own case, my connecting flight -- UA140 to LAS -- was delayed by 2.5 hours by an apparently unrelated problem (the aircraft was late in arriving) so I did not misconnect despite the lockdown. No explanation or apology was offered by United for this delay. In fact the existence of this delay was only mentioned in passing by the flight deck crew.

Question I have:

What happens if the problem that caused the lockdown can't be resolved in an hour or two?

What happens to arriving flights during a lockdown? Put in the penalty box? Diverted?

Anybody know why UA140 was delayed?

I was on the other side of the queue from you (I had the women shouting announcements) and I heard a discussion about opening the door. TSA eventually decided not to. They also had an issue with bathrooms, since the only ones were past security, or back behind customs, and customs didn't want to let people through without a blue form. Eventually they relented, provided that anyone using the bathrooms was escorted by someone from TSA. I can't imagine that that could have been very efficient.

I was trapped around 4:15 or 4:20, with a flight departing at 4:30. According to United.com, it left on time, so what TSA told us was clearly incorrect. Fortunately, United pushed me to the next flight (and let me keep my upgrade - a FTer has his priorities!) so I got where I was going. That was the last flight of the day, and I was afraid if I missed it it would be a hard sell to convince UA to put me up for the night. (Although I would have argued that had 975 not have been 49 minutes late, we wouldn't be in this bind.)

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