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reprint or license thisAIR TERROR PLOT | SPECTER OF 9/11
S.C. airports scramble to ban liquids, lotions, gels from airplanes
By JASON RYAN
jpryan@thestate.com
- Today's updates
AP Video updates
- Washington Post | How the plot was pieced together
- Plot uncovers gaps in airline security
- Twenty-four British-born Muslims arrested; some plotters feared still at large
- Terror threat fallout delays U.S. air travelers
- Planes still terrorists’ top choice
- Among previous terror attacks
- Liquid explosive easy to make, hard to detect
- Experts offer strategies for coping with travel under new restrictions
- Experts see al-Qaida’s hand in plot
- The plot at a glance
- Ban means longer lines at Columbia Metro
- Banned/Not banned at a glance
- Columbia passengers' stories
Gerald Chapman didn’t catch a wink of sleep Wednesday night.
At 10 p.m., Chapman, the federal security director for airports in Columbia, Florence and Greenville, received a call from superiors in Washington that led him to abandon his pillow and go to work.
Throughout the night, beginning with a Transportation Security Administration conference call, Chapman attended or commanded a series of meetings to implement a ban on most liquids, lotions and gels being carried onto passenger planes — all in response to the thwarting of a terrorist plot in Britain.
The ban had to be in place by 4 a.m. — before the first flights from airports in Columbia, Greenville and Florence.
Extra screening agents at gates, increased security from airport police, federal agents, and the State Law Enforcement Division were called in, and measures Chapman declined to discuss were put in place.
“Sometimes, there are things in place that you can’t see with the naked eye,” Chapman said Thursday as he shuffled among meetings throughout the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.
Airports in Columbia, Charleston and Greenville-Spartanburg were on high alert Thursday, while airports in other states with flights from Britain were put on severe alert, the Department of Homeland Security’s highest security threat level.
At Columbia Metropolitan Airport, notices posted by the Transportation Security Administration, loudspeaker announcements and airline employees all instructed passengers to discard such items as soft drinks, suntan lotion, toothpaste and shampoo, or put them into luggage to be checked.
“If it can be poured, squirted or pumped, it cannot pass through the checkpoint,” said Mike Flack, executive director of the airport, who awoke to a 2 a.m. phone call detailing the security changes.
While Chapman, who declined to say how many security officers they had at S.C. airports, said he held meetings from 4:30 a.m. onward with different groups of airport employees, some airline personnel said they were in the dark about what precipitated the security changes.
“Pretty much everybody was passed a piece of paper (detailing forbidden items) and that’s it,” said Anika Staples, a supervisor with Continental Express. “Employees are more surprised too because we’re not watching the news at three or four in the morning.”
No delays related to the alert were reported for Columbia Metropolitan Airport and the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. Charleston International Airport had about four delays on incoming flights from large cities by midday, spokeswoman Becky Beaman said.
The Transportation Security Administration does not expect a permanent ban of liquids from flights, but it will be in place “until further notice,” said spokesman Christopher White of Atlanta.
White said extra security screeners positioned at the gates would prevent passengers from carrying on liquids bought from stores within the concourse, past security checkpoints.
Beaman, spokeswoman for the Charleston airport, said the list of banned items was being revised throughout the day.
For example, exceptions were added to allow juice for small children if the inspectors could see a child was traveling.
“You can take a juice box, but the (inspectors) might take a sip of it,” Beaman said.
Chapman and White praised the responsiveness of security employees and airline employees for communicating the procedures well to passengers, even to those who proved difficult.
At the Continental desk where supervisor Staples works, a female passenger wasn’t happy about being told to stow or trash her contact solution.
“‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Staples said the passenger protested.
“I’m like, ‘No, it pretty much can’t go,’” Staples said. “It’s liquid, and you pretty much have to put your eyes in right now.”
For Chapman, the workday didn’t end until after 5 p.m., when he returned home to try to sleep. Still, he expected interruptions throughout the night before his return to the airport at 4 a.m. today.“This is an investigation that’s ongoing — a work in progress,” Chapman said. “We’re here until it’s done.”
Reach Ryan at (803) 771-8595. Staff writer Jim DuPlessis contributed to this report.
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