T5 error allowed foreign passengers in unchecked
11.05.08
Security errors at Heathrow Terminal 5 have allowed hundreds of foreign passengers to walk into Britain unchecked, the Telegraph reports. The newspaper says that confusion at the terminal has led to overseas passengers being treated as domestic arrivals, who are taken through the airport without passing through immigration or customs controls.
The Telegraph says that, in one case, passengers arriving on a British Airways flight from Libya were able to leave Heathrow without showing their passports. The Immigration Service Union claims six passengers from the Tripoli flight have never been found, although the Home Office insists all the passengers were traced.
The errors, admitted by BA last night, is the latest blow for the airline and airport operator BAA after the terminal's chaotic opening in March, which saw 500 flights cancelled and 23,000 bags misplaced. BA admitted there had been a ‘small number’ of incidents when foreign passengers had bypassed immigration controls, which it said had been caused by confusion over the new terminal's layout.
'Airport sources' told the newspaper that security breaches had repeatedly occurred when runway shuttle drivers collected passengers from overseas flights but ferried them to a gate intended for domestic arrivals. The error with the Libyan flight, on April 19, was discovered when some of the passengers asked where they should go and were hurriedly escorted back through the correct channel by officials.
Last night a spokesman for BA told the newspaper: ‘When Terminal 5 initially opened, there were a very small number of incidents where passengers from international flights were bused to the wrong zones. We are confident that this matter has now been addressed and new processes have been put in place.’
MP's on the all-party transport committee, which has been investigating Terminal 5's difficulties, condemned the security breaches and demanded to know why Willie Walsh, the chief executive of BA, had failed to mention them when he appeared before them last week.
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