Man arrested over Heathrow alert

A major security alert has taken place at Heathrow airport as a man with a rucksack scaled the perimeter fence and ran into the path of an aircraft.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC armed police surrounded the man on the north runway.

Police said a man was arrested and a controlled explosion of a bag found nothing suspicious. They later said the incident was not terrorism-related.

The alert, which delayed some flights, comes a day before the Queen will open Heathrow's new Terminal 5 building.

BBC correspondent Ben Ando said police had received numerous 999 calls at 1405 GMT from members of the public.

Royal visit

Reports were of a man of Asian or Arab appearance removing his shoes before scaling the airport's perimeter fence, he said.

It is understood a message sent from the pilot to air traffic control alerting them to a man on the runway may have been overheard by the police, allowing them to act swiftly.

Up to 20 emergency services vehicles were reportedly sent to the scene where the rucksack was recovered and the controlled explosion was carried out.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said a man was being held in custody.

Buckingham Palace confirmed the Queen's visit to Heathrow to open the new £4.3bn T5 building would go ahead on Friday as planned.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I'm satisfied everything is now being done to ensure security at Heathrow is intact.

"We are determined to protect all passengers and all staff who go through Heathrow and every other airport."

Norman Shanks, a former head of security at airports operator BAA, said it was not the first time a person had climbed over airport fencing.

But he said that while it was possible to climb such barriers, airports also had patrols, surveillance and fast-response units in place.

Last month protesters opposing airport expansion plans breached security to unveil a banner on top of a parked passenger jet.

Campaign groups Greenpeace and Plane Stupid both denied any involvement in this latest incident.

Flight delays

Aviation security expert Chris Yates described it as "extraordinarily serious" and said a lot of hard questions would now be asked of Heathrow's security.

The northern runway, also identified as 27R, was temporarily closed but is now fully operational. The southern runway remained open throughout the incident.

A statement from BAA said the incident ended just before 1600 GMT.

"Some short delays have occurred as a result, but we expect to return to normal later this afternoon.

"Clearly this incident is a matter of some concern, and will be fully investigated in conjunction with the police," the statement said.

Passengers were being advised to contact airlines to find out whether flights have been delayed or cancelled.

Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7294745.stm)

Man late for flight takes short cut across runway...
Filth blow his luggage up...
:rotflmao:

Well, they said his rucksack didn't have explosives. OK, I buy that. But what happen when you throw a rucksack full of metal debris into the running engine of a passenger jet? Or even clothes for that matter. Could've lit the fuel in the wing as the internal rotors destabilized and blew apart. They say he wasn't a terrorist, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a loon. (And he surely was if he was jumping the fence and running across an airport field after 9/11)

wow just wow the pilot saw him take his shoes off and scale the fence and they acted and got him before he could do anything.
now makes you wonder how 4 planes were hijacked and nothing was done for hours hmm weird shit.

Although on the surface they're talking calm and wanting to appear in control, I'm sure some heads are gonna roll over this. Although you can't cover everything all of the time, you gotta employ a security strategy that is going to at least slow any potential threats long enough so that you can deploy some ready reaction teams to prevent idiots like this from getting close enough to aircraft that they can do some damage.

You need something like a concentric circle defense. This is something akin to what they use to protect aircraft carriers. Something will eventually get close to the object but the outter defensive rings will either halt or temporarily delay the progress of the aggressor (or nutjob) until the cavalry arrives.

It could have been a lot worse. Thank God nothing did happen. Panic causes problems. He did not have explosives. No, I do not want any thing to happen to anyone. Just how are these nutjobs getting threw our beefed up defense systems, after 9/11? So, are airports "soft" targets or "hard" targets?

at the very least, most airports could use a second fence a few feet in from the regular fence. That would help to slow them down.

Constantine wire (Razor wire)? That would help. Maybe between the two fences put some angry ass, under-fed pitbulls, rots, and dobermans. THAT would help.