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A woman traveller who forgot a possession at Cairns Airport yesterday popped briefly through a door to fetch it – triggering a full-scale security alert that closed the whole airport down, delaying five flights and stranding travellers.

The incident shows how ludicrously easy it is to cause havoc at an airport through one simple action that wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow anywhere else. The woman unwittingly went the wrong way through an exit. She sparked a total lockdown.

It’s almost like a department store evacuating because someone tried to run up an escalator the wrong way – though airports are obviously twitchier about security than stores.

Cairns Airport is busy. Almost 390,000 passed through it in the month of May alone.

The airport’s operations manager Kate McCeery-Carr told the Cairns Post the woman’s inadvertent action activated an alarm.

“She thought because she had been screened it was all OK. She is very apologetic, but we had to do a full evacuation.”

Passengers at the airport spoke of “Federal Police everywhere”.

“Cairns Airport Domestic Terminal has been evacuated due to a suspected security breach,” airport officials stated. “All passengers are currently being re-screened and we anticipate operations will return back to normal very soon. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.”

Frustrated passengers debated the closedown on Twitter.

“All these people that had to be evacuated had already been screened. You could hardly say it was NO SECURITY!!!!” wrote one traveller.

“The poor woman went through an exit door the wrong way, and everyone had to be evacuated because of it? For God sake……..is this #overkill or what?” another pointed out. “How was she a safety risk?”

Another passenger tweeted: “It’s a pity it caused so much disruption and delay, do you have any idea of the costs involved with delayed flights? The airlines must be waving their fists in anger as their money gets flushed down the plughole because of an innocent mistake.”

And another opinion: “Better to be safe then sorry. My family would be livid if I got blown up because someone went through the wrong door and security just go ‘it’s probably an accident, we’ll let it go’.”

Another traveller: “Nah I don’t know the costs involved, but I do know that if an attack was made and no security measures were undertaken the airport would be sued like no tomorrow. It’s a lose-lose situation and it reinforces the need to have signage up everywhere so that dummies can read them.”

Australian Federal Police were quoted as saying: “At no stage was there a threat to public safety. Inquiries into this matter remain ongoing and no charges have been laid at this stage.”

Written by Peter Needham