Birmingham Airport scanner blunder
23.02.10
Birmingham Airport is investigating a major security breach after staff switched off a faulty metal detector - and forgot to switch it back on again - the Birmingham Mail reports. The blunder was only realised when fully-uniformed police officers walked through the scanners and the alarms did not go off. The metal embedded in their dress and equipment usually causes the scanners to bleep.
A 'source' at the airport told the Mail that hundreds of passengers had passed through the scanner whilst it was switched off on Sunday, February 14. The lapse comes at a time when the Home Office terrorism threat is listed as ‘severe’, which means an attack is ‘highly likely’.
The newspaper reports that the scanner had been turned off when it was ‘quiet’ because it was not working properly. A spokesman for Birmingham Airport said: ‘We have launched an investigation into a situation which occurred on Sunday February 14, when a passenger Arch Metal Detector (AMD) in Terminal Two experienced technical issues. As soon as the security guards realised that the AMD was not working to a required standard, the security lane was immediately closed down.'
‘It is believed that the AMD was out of service for approximately 25 minutes. A full and thorough investigation is underway. However, the passenger search procedure is one element of a multi-layered security approach taken on all flights.’
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