Scanner failure delays thousands at Sydney Airport

Walk-through metal detector loses power.

Thousands of travellers were ejected from Sydney’s Domestic Airport to be rescreened yesterday afternoon, after a security screening device lost power.

The walk-through metal detector in Sydney’s Terminal 2 lost power at approximately 3.15pm, allowing 16 passengers to pass though without being properly screened.

Upon detecting the error, airport staff decided to clear the area and rescreen all passengers. Rescreening commenced at 6.00pm.

Terminal 2 was used by several domestic carriers, including Tiger, Jetstar, Virgin Blue, Regional Express, Aeropelican, Air Link and some Qantas flights.

ABC news reported that a total of 29 Jetstar, Virgin Blue and Tiger flights had been cancelled as a result of the delays. Airlines hoped to clear the backlog of stranded passengers by the end of today.

An airport spokesman declined to provide details of the device, noting that the incident and cause of the power loss was currently under investigation.

“The circumstances of the incident are being thoroughly investigated in accordance with the requirements of the Office of Transport Security,” he told iTnews.

“We want to learn all we can to make sure that there is no repeat of the disruption.

“Sydney Airport wishes to apologise to all passengers who were inconvenienced by Tuesday’s screening failure at T2.”

Jetstar told the Sydney Morning Herald this morning that it planned to seek compensation from Sydney Airport, noting that 2,000 of its passengers were stranded overnight.

Tiger and Virgin Blue also provided some passengers with overnight accommodation, the newspaper reported.