Shannon Reynold's innocent breaching of airport security

Passenger accidentally gets on airport tarmac
Excerpt:

Around 5 a.m. on February 23, Reynolds was simply trying to park at an off-site parking lot in time to catch a flight on Spirit Airlines, she told CNN.

She didn't notice she was pulling into a Delta employee parking lot, where she said she was waved through two security checkpoints and allowed to park. Wearing a sundress and carrying her suitcase, she got on a Delta employee shuttle without being asked for identification. None of the employees on board was wearing a uniform, she said, so she said she didn't realize it was for employees only.

"When I got to the airport, I looked around and I realized this is not where I was supposed to be. It was the tarmac with a big airplane sitting there," Reynolds said.

Reynolds alerted the shuttle driver, but she was still allowed to get out of the bus onto the tarmac. A ramp agent used his badge to take her up the stairs into the airport passenger area.

"Here I was sitting in the middle of the C Terminal without having to go through security or do anything," Reynolds said. The airport employee who let her into the secure area told her to go downstairs and go through security as she normally would, Reynolds said. Inside the terminal someone finally stopped her and asked for her identification.

That started the investigation into how she had made it so far without being checked. (In a police report on the incident, the ramp agent she followed into the concourse said he assumed she was an employee because of all the checkpoints she had to pass.)

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