Orlando International’s director acknowledged Monday that the airport needs to look at its communications procedures after it resorted to using bullhorns Friday night to try to quell the chaos caused by a passenger’s smoking electronics battery.
“We had people with bullhorns that were trying to get the message across,” director Phil Brown said.
Brown said the airport will look at using electronic billboards, a very loud announcement system tied to the airport’s fire alarm and other means to better communicate the status of an emergency.
Nearly 8,000 passengers were scheduled for outbound flights between 5 p.m., when the incident occurred, and 9 p.m., when the airport was gradually restoring operations.
Brown said the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, police, federal security agents and airlines held a “hot wash,” or debriefing, to evaluate how the airport could have dealt better with an otherwise innocuous event that triggered pandemonium and left crowds of jittery fliers stranded for hours.
Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said Monday her agency’s experts examined the device that burned and identified it as a “Raspberry Pi,” a compact computer that was “augmented” by a lithium battery.
Neither airport nor police officials would identify the airline passenger Monday, and Brown said no criminal charges were expected.
Thousands of passengers had to be re-screened because unchecked fliers had fled to secure, or what TSA refers to as “sterile,” areas.
