Lockdown in Terminal C
 

So I FINALLY arrived at DFW last night for a connection (3 hours late, including the obligatory diversion to OKC, so we'd been on the plane for more than 6 hours on what should have been a 3 hour flight), and after waiting at the gate for 5-10 minutes the gate agent walks on board and announces:

"I'm the agent from up top, and I wanted to let you know that you will be able to leave the plane, but there has been a security breach and no one is allowed to leave Terminal C. We are locked down. Hopefully it won't be too much longer. For those of you with connections in other terminals, you will have to wait in Terminal C until the TSA clears the alert. Skylink is not running."

I thought the folks in the row behind me were going to riot. They had a tight connection to LAS out of Terminal A, with 20 minutes until it left.

We got off the plane, and there were people everywhere. There was a line of probably 500 people at the terminal exit. The concourse was packed not only with the folks arriving, but those delayed leaving, the folks caught in the lockdown, and those who were on cots because their flights were canceled.

I saw two cops with dogs walk by. That was it. About 20 minutes later, they opened the doors and gates.

While it's better than a terminal dump, with the 10s of thousands of people in that terminal at that hour, I think it would be absolutely impossible to find a person or object that "breached security". IMHO, all this did was raise costs to the airline and inconvenience travelers already very frustrated.

We truly in danger of becoming a third-world country in terms of air-travel.

I'm willing to bet it was another STUPID, unnecessary dump.

Did you even bother to read the original post before commenting? There was no dump. While I do sympathize with the passengers with tight connections as I've been in that same boat myself before, I'd take a temporary lockdown over a dump any day.

Yes, nothing like false imprisonment. :eek:

While probably indeed an over-reaction, I can slightly see blocking people from going from Terminal C to another terminal, but were they also holding people inside and preventing them from retrieving their bags and leaving the airport (if their destination was Dallas)??? What is the logic in that?

Yeah, it is unacceptable DFW security is getting worse ever have before. Don't let anymore security breach after terminal C is being lockdown. It wasn't stupid move from TSA. What is reason why security breach again at DFW?

^Arriving passengers have presumably been screened at their point of origination, and thus are not security risks, so why not escort those whose destination is Dallas, from the gate to baggage claim and/or out of the terminal?

I'd assume that bags were held and not dumped out to baggage claim to be stolen or rifled through, but we know this is not always a logical process.

Yes. It was completely locked down.

My point exactly.

DFW security is if nothing else inconsistent.

About two weeks ago, my wife was in line at the C21 security checkpoint. I was waiting for her to get through security before leaving when I noticed that a woman passenger already inside the secure zone opened the alarmed checkpoint exit door to the left of the checkpoint and let her friend through who was previously on a mobile phone in the queue waiting to get through the checkpoint. The two women were college aged, wearing clothing with Sorority/Greek letters and were giggling about their new found method of getting through the checkpoint without queuing.

I could not have been the only person to have seen this because an alarm sounded when the door was opened. However, a passenger made it to the secure zone without screening. When no one appeared to notice what just happened, I approached the ID checker and she just shrugged her shoulders and laughed. I walked past her to the first TSA agent I saw and let him know what I had seen. He too was indifferent and told he would look into it. I have the direct phone number of the TSA Director at DFW in my mobile phone (given to me after an extremely ugly incident in Terminal E a couple of months ago) so I called him and had to leave a message. I never heard back so I don't know what happened, but there was no terminal dump, no lock down and no heightened security alert of any kind as a result of this security breach. My wife's flight left on time and no one blew anything up.

I cannot help but wonder about the legalities of keeping someone from, say your flight, who has nothing but carry on and just wants to exit to curbside.

"Why are you so eager to leave, Comrade? Do you have something to hide? Perhaps you should come and have a chat with some Comrades from State Security..."

Security is only important when they want it to be. I'm quite sure most of the rank and file know (at least on some level) that it is a charade. "Threats" are more likely to be addressed when their is a political motive involved. We are forced to listen to constant announcements encouraging us to report "suspicious" behavior, then little or nothing is done when someone does. I do not feel like it's my place to report someone sneaking past a line or carrying "prohibited" items like large bottles of shampoo, toothpaste, etc. I'd only speak up if saw someone carrying a bomb or doing something worthy of real concern. 90% of our "security" is a joke.

To which I reply while taking a belly full of lead, "You cannot uphold American ideology with un-American actions!" ;)

If I'm not mistaken TSA cannot stop the flow of passengers during a Bravo???

LEO's can stop passengers, but TSA will stand there and tell you to wait but its my understand that you can tell them to bugger-off.

Do I have this right?

Almost every time I've had a run in with the TSA I have been the one that has dared/aksed/beg them to call the police since it has always been outrageous and indefensible behavior on their part that has caused me to challenge them.