After woman's death at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, questions over security measures
CHICAGO (CBS) – The death of a 57-year-old woman whose body was found inside a restricted 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 a restricted area in Terminal 5, trapped in the conveyor belt of equipment used to move baggage. 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.
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 about the case, he gave us 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.
In 2021, Marilyn Hartman, a serial stowaway, told CBS News Chicago that she had board 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.
