Man somehow gets past TSA checkpoint, boards flight without ticket
On Sunday night, an unidentified 26-year-old man parked his car at the curb at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, grabbed his keys, walked through a TSA checkpoint and then boarded a flight. All of that sounds perfectly reasonable — other than the fact that he didn't have a ticket or a boarding pass. According the Dallas Morning News, the TSA is "reviewing the incident" to determine how he made it past security and onto the plane anyway. After figuring out what happened, an employee of the airline in question (another detail that the DFW officials aren't releasing yet) called the DFW Airport Department of Public Safety and the man was arrested for criminal trespassing. The flight that he boarded was delayed slightly, but no other flights or gates were affected.
TSA spokesman Mike England told Road Warrior Voices
TSA is reviewing the incident and is working closely with the airport, local law enforcement and stakeholders to ensure that all of our checkpoints at DFW reflect optimal security configurations. Immediately following this incident, TSA made adjustments to the DFW screening area and has added more barriers, and is working to identify other long-term solutions that may require physical adjustments to the area. As always, TSA continually evaluates checkpoint configurations and passenger flows at all our airports to ensure physical security.
According to CBSDFW, a police bomb squad was called to assist in the search of the man's vehicle, which was parked outside Terminal D, but did not find anything threatening (or relevant, even) inside the car. Other vehicles approaching the terminal were briefly diverted while the authorities investigated, but the traffic interruption was only temporary. Road Warrior Voices has reached out to DFW for comment.
In February, the so-called "serial stowaway" Marilyn Hartman flew from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Jacksonville, Florida without a ticket, although she has since been caught or arrested on each of the seven (!!!) occasions she has tried to sneak past airport security since then.