Aspen Airport Shut Down Over Misidentified Hairdryer
Hundreds of people evacuated the terminal and several flights were delayed.
The terminal was evacuated and Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (KASE) was temporarily closed due to a false-alarm “security incident” on Sunday. Credit: Pitkin County
A “security incident” at Colorado’s Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (KASE) that caused an evacuation of the terminal building and caused multiple flight delays on Sunday (April 13) was ultimately traced to a “modified hairdryer” detected by security scanners in a checked bag. According to a report in Aspen Daily News, Transportation Security Administration spokesperson Lorie Dankers said the airport’s computer tomography (CT) scanner’s algorithm was triggered by a hairdryer that was “heavily modified with tape.”
She added, “If something looks suspicious on screen and they’re not able to resolve it, and our explosive specialist was not able to resolve that without getting better visibility on it—and these are people who are highly trained in their position—we have to use and trust their expertise. And that’s what happened here.”
Four deputies from the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office responded to the call just before noon local time on Sunday. They were able to identify and interview the owner of the bag. “Once we felt comfortable with who they were,” a sheriff’s spokesman said, “then we could start to look at the bag itself.” The Sheriff’s Office said the passenger had done “nothing wrong” and, in fact, had arrived from another airport where the suspicious hairdryer went undetected. The evacuation and flight delays kept the airport shut down for about two hours.
