Within three days, a woman was detained twice at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for trespassing while claiming to be picking up her sister and for boarding a Delta flight without a ticket. The occurrences call into question airport protocols and security.
Last week, a strange chain of events occurred at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport when a woman was arrested twice in three days for allegedly trespassing.
In the first instance, she boarded a Delta flight to Honolulu without a ticket on December 24, which caused a two-hour delay.
The flight returned to the gate after Delta employees found the unticketed passenger during the plane’s taxiing. Before the flight was cleared, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rescreened passengers and removed the woman off.
“Delta people followed procedures to ensure safety,” the airline said, expressing regret for the wait.
The woman was arrested once more on December 27, a few days later, for loitering at the airport. She had no ticket and was unable to give precise flight information, but she claimed to be there to pick up her sister.
She was arrested for trespassing when the police concluded she had no justification for being at the airport.
Although she had evaded identity verification and boarding status checks in the initial incident, a TSA representative acknowledged that she had gone through routine screening and was not in possession of any prohibited goods.
An examination into how the breaches happened has been spurred by these events. TSA underlined that in order to stop such occurrences, it will examine security procedures across the country.
Concerns regarding weaknesses in airport security procedures are heightened by this case, which comes after previous well-publicized stowaway cases.
It is evident that the occurrence serves as a wake-up call for strengthening security at one of the busiest airports in the country, even as investigations continue.
