Security scare forces delays at Logan

Half of Logan International Airport's Terminal B was evacuated late yesterday morning after a woman bypassed a security checkpoint.

Four American Airlines jets awaiting takeoff were emptied and passengers waiting inside the terminal were spilled into the terminal's lobby and outside while Transportation Security Administration and Massachusetts State Police used dogs to search for weapons that could have been smuggled inside or onboard.

After about two hours, officials determined that the unidentified woman wandered into a secure area to search for a lost item and represented no security threat. But that was little consolation to passengers who complained that they waited for hours while neither airline or security officials offered an explanation for the ruckus.

''They've told us zip," said Lenore Boss, a Claremont, Calif., woman who waited with her husband, Herbert, for an American flight to California.

An American spokesman said eight flights were delayed by the incident, with the longest delay lasting 149 minutes. The airline had gotten no complaints about lack of communication as of 5 p.m. yesterday, he said.

The incident started at 11:10 a.m., when a passenger notified airport screeners that a woman had bypassed a security checkpoint by walking though a lane designated for arriving passengers to exit. Only passengers and airport workers who have gone through security screening are permitted behind such checkpoints.

Minutes later, officials checking surveillance tapes confirmed that the woman had breached security, said George Naccara, Logan's federal security director. Those tapes also showed a man talking with an airport screener who was supposed to be monitoring the exit lane, Naccara said, leading to early fears that he may have been a decoy sent as a distraction to allow the woman time to slip behind the gate.

That man was later found and questioned by police, who determined he had stopped only to ask the screener's help in finding a missing pair of sunglasses. The screener likely will face a suspension from screening duties and undergo additional training, officials said.

The woman was never found, but officials suspect that she, too, was a passenger looking for something she lost.

''I don't think she knew what she did," Nacarra said. ''She'll know tonight."

Yesterday, Logan also became the 14th airport in the country to begin using an explosive trace-detection, or ''puffer," machine to screen passengers. The machine, installed in Delta Air Lines' new Terminal A, puffs air on passengers and analyzes the residue that blows off them, detecting potential traces of explosives.

Debra Elshrafi, a Peabody woman who went through the machine yesterday afternoon, said it was a breeze.

''I could live without going through that, but if it's for a good reason, I don't mind it," she said.

The TSA is spending about $28 million to install 147 puffer machines at US airports, said spokeswoman Ann Davis. That could include Logan getting additional machines, though those plans aren't complete.

The devices are being tested around the country as an alternative to pat-down searches for weapons and explosives. Only passengers selected at random or by a computer-profiling system go through the machines, and while being selected does guarantee they will have to remove their shoes, going through the puffer and metal detectors without setting off an alarm means they won't be patted down, Davis said.

Keith Reed can be reached at reed@globe.com.