| Full Video footage of the Newark Airport security breach |
Newark Airport Security Breach Suspect Arrested, Identified As N.J. Man Haisong Jiang
The mystery man who breached security at Newark Liberty International Airport last weekend, slowing air traffic around the world, is in custody tonight, according to two officials with knowledge of the situation.
According to the Associated Press, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey identified the man as 28-year-old Haisong Jiang of Piscataway, who was taken into custody at 7:30 p.m. tonight at his home. He had been tracked down through his license plate, apparently recorded on airport surveillance cameras, one of the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
On Sunday, the man slipped under a security ribbon at Terminal C after a guard briefly left his post, entering an area where passengers already had been screened. A woman lifted the ribbon for him, and after the two shared a kiss, they walked together past the guard’s desk. Federal officials, under pressure from Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), released a grainy video of the maneuver Thursday.
The incident, reported by a fellow traveler, led officials to shut down the terminal for six hours, stranding thousands of passengers and leading to a cascade of delays that stretched across the United States and overseas.
The breach was magnified given its timing, coming just nine days after a Nigerian man tried to down a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight with a chemical bomb.
Video Shows Newark Airport Lockdown Intruder
Federal officials today released a video tape of surveillance footage of an unidentified man who breached security at Newark Liberty International Airport Sunday, grounding flights for hours.
The Transportation Security Administration -- which had resisted repeated calls to make the tape available to the public -- finally relented after days of pressure by U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). Lautenberg said federal officials need to talk to the man.
“I desperately want to see this individual questioned,” Lautenberg said. “Was this just an innocent mistake or was he bird-dogging for someone?”
The tape, about six and a half minutes long, is not dramatic. As has been described earlier, it shows the man embracing a woman at a security checkpoint before she passes through screening. Toward the end of the tape that was made available to the public, he then ducks under a rope used to divide the screening area from the exit corridor.
The quality of the tape being released is not very good and it was not known if the original was sharper.
Lautenberg, whose office released the copy, said the video provides an opportunity for the TSA to enhance the ongoing investigation.
"The more people who see this image, the faster we will find the person in question,” he said.
Lautenberg and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), at a press conference Wednesday, said the federal government should investigate "from the bottom levels" on up to determine how the security lapses occurred.
According to TSA officials, the incident began some time around 5:20 p.m. on Sunday when the man was spotted by a bystander as he walked the wrong way down the exit lane of the C-1 security checkpoint in Terminal C, which is operated by Continental Airlines.
A malfunctioning camera intended to monitor the checkpoint left the TSA unable to quickly review what had happened, forcing them to get access to a separate camera system operated by Continental Airlines, but a series of miscues -- including calls to the wrong number and a failure to call Port Authority police -- badly snowballed, as TSA waited for about two hours before shutting down the terminal as they looked for the intruder.
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Sources: NJ.com, Google Maps
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