There has been a security breach at Melbourne Airport, sending Terminal 1 into chaos.
Melbourne Airport told news.com.au it understands there was an issue with screening passengers at the terminal and all passengers are now needing to be re-screened.
Qantas manages security operations in Terminal 1 and said a passenger appeared to have “inadvertently passed from an ‘unscreened’ area to a ‘screened’ area” of the airport.
“As a precaution all Qantas operations have been put on hold and passengers in the terminal are being rescreened, 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 for our passengers and we apologise for that. We are investigating how this incident occurred.”
A Twitter user shared that their fully loaded plane was forced to evacuate the terminal and be sent back through security screening.
“They’ve informed us that someone has slipped through the security gates and entered the terminal without screening,” Tim Joyce wrote just before 6.30am on Tuesday.
Mr Joyce spoke to the Today Show from the airport, further explaining his flight was just about to take off when the pilot informed them of the security breach.
“It seems quite serious. There are thousands of people waiting,” he said.
“They’ve pretty much roped everything off. Everything is shut down and everyone has to be re-screened,” he said.
“Essentially they’ve communicated that people will be screened on a boarding basis from now on, so the next flight out will be screened first.”
Another passenger from the same Qantas flight to Brisbane shared a similar message on Twitter.
“Everyone had to de plane and are waiting to be called through security again,” Sue Duke wrote.
More to come.