False Alarms Force Evacuation At Dallas-Love Field
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Airport officials and first responders are trying to figure out what caused the malfunction that set off fire alarms and forced an evacuation at Dallas-Love Field Saturday morning.
This isn't the first time in recent years the airport has had false fire alarms, but it is the first time one has led to an evacuation.
Within a couple of hours things were back to normal with passengers lining up to go back through security, but even though this turned out to be the latest in a series of false fire alarms, security experts say they have no choice but to assume it's the real thing.
For the second time in eight days passengers at Love Field were back outside the airport, evacuated. Though nothing seemed to connect this incident prompted by fire alarms with the earlier domestic disturbance and officer involved shooting, some couldn't help wonder if this is becoming the norm.
"I think everybody was surprised that since it had been evacuated a week ago, it was kind of a mess or seems to be unorganized. Here we are a week later doing the same thing, right," said passenger Chris Bridges.
Retired airline captain and aviation consultant Denny Kelly said his only surprise is that we haven't seen even more of these incidents.
"Expect more in the future. They should do that because that's going to happen. There's going to be more false alarms for all kinds of things," said Kelly.
In this case, a spokesperson for Love Field said over the last two years the airport has had a number of malfunctions that caused false fire alarms, and they haven't been able to determine the cause.
Kelly said that opens the door for people to become complacent at a time when they need to be on heightened alert.
"But if you've had false fire alarms before, people will go, 'another one, you know, come on.' It's the same thing with bomb threats," said Kelly.
That's why Kelly insists even if something seems like a false alarm from the outset, security officials have to assume the worst case scenario until they can rule it out.
"It could have something to do with our ultimate fears, and it could be something that's staged to see if they can get somebody in the terminal or something in the terminal," said Kelly.
A spokesperson for Love Field said the city's aviation director will be meeting with fire officials to investigate the source of the recurring false alarms.
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