There has been a security breach at Melbourne Airport, sending Terminal 1 into chaos.
Melbourne Airport told news.com.au it understands there was a problem with passenger screening at the terminal and all passengers must now be screened.
Qantas manages security operations at Terminal 1 and said a passenger appeared to have “involuntarily moved from an ‘uncontrolled’ area to a ‘secured’ area” of the airport.
“As a precaution, all Qantas operations have stopped and passengers are being screened in the terminal, which is causing delays to some services this morning,” Qantas said in a statement.
“Safety is our number one priority, but we know this disruption is causing some inconvenience to our passengers and we apologize for that. We are investigating how this incident happened.”
One Twitter user shared that his fully loaded plane was forced to evacuate the terminal and be sent back through security.
“We have been advised that someone has escaped through the security doors and entered the terminal without security,” Tim Joyce wrote shortly before 6.30am on Tuesday.
Mr. Joyce spoke to the Today’s show from the airport, further explaining that their flight was about to take off when the pilot informed them of the security breach.
“It looks pretty serious. There are thousands of people waiting,” he said.
“They’ve screwed up almost everything. Everything is closed and everyone has to be checked,” he said.
“Essentially, they’ve communicated that from now on people will be screened during boarding, so the next departing flight will be screened first.”
Another passenger on the same Qantas flight to Brisbane shared a similar message on Twitter.
“Everyone had to get off the plane and is waiting to be called back to security,” wrote Sue Duke.
The estimated departure time for the 6:00am Melbourne to Brisbane Qantas flight is now 7:20am. The next flight to Brisbane at 7:30 has been cancelled.
A 6am Qantas flight to Sydney has also been delayed and is expected to depart at 7.15am. The next flight to Sydney at 6:30am is delayed until 7:30am.
Two 6.05 Qantas flights to Canberra and Newcastle have been delayed until 7.45.
The 6.30am Qantas flight to the Gold Coast has been cancelled.
Four subsequent flights are also delayed.
Major delays at Melbourne Airport are expected to affect other airports around the country.
More to come.
Read related topics: Melbourne