Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

 

"An abundance of caution"

Hundreds of passengers were evacuated briefly Thursday from the main terminal at Dulles International Airport outside Washington after airport screeners thought a suspicious image on an X-ray monitor might be a gun.

Screeners spotted the image about 4:40 p.m. EST Thursday and the terminal reopened about an hour later. Passengers went through security checkpoints again, and no weapons were found, airport officials said.

“The screeners were uncertain whether it was a test image on the screen or a bag with a firearm,” said Amy Von Walter, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration. “Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to evacuate the terminal.”

(From AP, via Newsday [http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-airport-security-scare,0,637453.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines], courtesy of Google News, because the Miami Herald requires registration to read the story pointed to by CSO. Interestingly, the Richmond Times Dispatch [http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031779102805&path=!business&s=1045855934855], which is an earlier hit, chose to elide the words “an abundance of.”)