Arrest Made in Newark Airport Scare

by John Smith, Staff Writer

Jan 12, 2010 08:29 AM

The man believed to have breached airport security, causing a six-hour lockdown in a U.S. airport Sunday has been arrested.

Twenty-eight-year-old Haisong Jiang was taken into custody by the Port Authority Friday evening at his home in New Jersey.

The agency said he is being charged with defiant trespassing and is being held at the airport.

Sunday's breach led the Transportation Security Administration to shut down a section of Newark airport, causing delays for thousands of passengers.

The security officer who left his post, allowing the man to slip past a security cordon, has been on administrative leave since Tuesday.

A union official representing the guard, who has not been named, defended him, saying he has been "rated a model employee."

The arrest comes a day after a New Jersey senator released security footage of the breach, showing the man slipping under a security cordon to embrace a departing female passenger. The two then walked away hand-in-hand toward the boarding area.

In the video, the TSA guard is shown asking the man to move away from the secure area.

Later, the officer leaves his post and heads for the airport concourse, and the man slips into the secure area.

The TSA said in a statement the circumstances surrounding the incident are under review.

The TSA was formed after the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.