STATEMENT: Emergency Message Accidentally Displayed
(Los Angeles, California -- April 22, 2013) An erroneous emergency terminal evacuation notice was displayed for a few minutes at the LAX Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) this evening after an airline contractor accidentally activated the message. No additional notification measures (such as an audible alarm) were activated and there were no reports of anyone leaving the terminal. At 9:47 p.m., LAX Airport Operations received phone calls from airline personnel that the electronic monitors located behind the TBIT ticketing counters were displaying a pre-programmed emergency terminal evacuation message. After the mistake was discovered, airport staff removed the message from all the monitors by 9:54 p.m. After investigating what caused the erroneous posting, LAX Airport Ops and Information Technology staffers reported that an airline contract employee, who is authorized to access the display system, was programming airline check-in information into a set of monitors for a particular flight when he accidentally activated the pre-programmed emergency terminal evacuation message. The airport’s Information Technology staff will be looking at ways to ensure this accident does not happen again in the future.
