After woman's death at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, questions over security measures
Editor's note: This story has been edited to clarify that the woman, according to a city spokesman, was in a non-public area but not in a restricted area of the airport. The spokesman also said the woman was not trapped in baggage machinery as originally reported.
CHICAGO (CBS) – The death of a 57-year-old woman whose body was found inside a non-public area at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Thursday and was ruled a suicide was the second security breach at the airport in the past few weeks.
The North Carolina woman was found in an area used for baggage distribution in Terminal 5. Surveillance video showed that she entered the unoccupied area at 2:30 a.m.
How she was able to get into the area was still unclear as of Friday.
The Chicago Department of Aviation "would not characterize this incident as a security breach," said spokesman Kevin Bargnes.
Just 17 days before her death, a woman named Cecara Baker used a table and a chair to prop herself up and climb over a wall of the Department of Homeland Security at the closed TSA checkpoint in Terminal 1, according to a police report.
"I think it's important to qualify that no airport security system is impenetrable," said Jeff Price, a professor of aviation management at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
While Price did not know the specifics of the case, he provided an overall assessment of security at a large airport like O'Hare.
"One of the things that we stress a lot in security training at airports is do not allow piggybacking," Price said. "And always, even if there's a known employee behind you, you go through the door, you shut the door. They have to badge that door to get through it, because you can't assume that their badge was not suddenly inactivated, due to discovered security risk, or maybe they suddenly lost employment, or there's some other issue."
Price added that there are protocols in place for when a breach occurs.
"Unfortunately, those happen as well when you're pushing nearly 3 million passengers a year through airports, through 450 commercial service airports," he said. "These things are bound to happen from time to time."
Baker was arrested after it was confirmed she breached security. The 34-year-old was charged with felony criminal trespass and taken for a mental health evaluation after she was seen "acting erratically" and "talking in circles."
In another case, back in 2020, Aditya Singh, of California, was arrested after he had been living at O'Hare for three months. Singh told police he had found an employee's badge. He was charged with felony criminal trespass.
An aviation department spokesman said Singh had arrived at O'Hare as a passenger and never left the secure side of the airport. The badge found in his possession had been reported lost by an employee and was no longer active.
In 2021, Marilyn Hartman, a serial stowaway, told CBS News Chicago that she had boarded at least 30 flights over the years with some of them at O'Hare, all without an airline ticket.
So how does an airport prevent such security breaches?
Price said it begins with reinforcing employee training and a security assessment at the airport.
CBS News Chicago asked O'Hare officials if they would conduct such an assessment, but they did not immediately respond.
