Los Angeles International Airport passengers suffered a scare on Monday when a display behind the ticketing counters in a terminal read, "An emergency has been declared in the terminal. Please evacuate."
It turned out to be false alarm.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday that LAX officials called the incident an error, and blamed a contract worker for accidentally triggering the emergency on the flight-status display screen.
The incident occurred just before 10 p.m. in the Tom Bradley International Terminal. When passengers saw the display, they alerted authorities. Police quickly inundated the area. Airport personnel initially thought that the display could have been hacked, which led to a search of the terminal for the supposed culprit.
LAX spokeswoman Nancy Castle explained the mistake in e-mail (via L.A. Times):
"After the mistake was discovered, airport staff removed the message from all monitors by 9:54 p.m. ... [The contract worker was] programming airline check-in information into a set of monitors for a particular flight when he accidently activated the pre-programmed emergency terminal evacuation. The airport's information technology staff will be looking at ways to ensure this accident does not happen again in the future."
LAX officials will examine who is allowed access to alter the display messages, hoping to prevent a similar mishap from occurring again.
If LAX's electronic display had been hacked, it wouldn't be the first time that a hacker targeted a sign. An electronic sign near the University of South California campus was hacked earlier in April and made to display "inappropriate messages."
Despite the fear that an airport display reading "emergency" and "evacuate" can elicit, all accounts seem to indicate that all-out panic did not breakout in the terminal. According to the Associated Press, officials had the emergency message off within five minutes, and no other alarms sounded.
The terminal returned to normal shortly thereafter.
