Hoax triggers evacuation at YYC
False emergency calls about a shooting at Calgary International Airport thrust YYC into chaos Friday evening.
While passengers and YYC staff scrambled for safety amid reports an active shooter was wandering the terminals, officials reported no serious injuries.
City 911 operators received calls just after 5 p.m. of an individual opening fire inside the busy airport — calls Calgary police Det. Bruce Brown said were quickly determined to be groundless.
“There were no other calls from anyone else in the airport,” he said, adding the same caller made a number of reports from the same phone number.
He said the same caller also reported a car fire near the airport, which also turned out to be untrue.
About 20 minutes later, an announcement was made over the terminal’s public address system telling passengers of an “active shooter” at the airport, urging everybody to evacuate — and according to some accounts, hide.
Calgary resident Nichole Barwise was about to board an Air Transat flight to England with her boyfriend when the order to evacuate was issued.
“It was the scariest 10 minutes of my life,” she said, speaking with Postmedia from the airport’s departures lounge. “We had all of our stuff in our hand and probably 500 people around us.”
Nearby security staff descended on her departure gate, ushering passengers and airline employees into a locked room.
“There was a lot of crying, a little bit of screaming,” she said.
“Airport security just jumped into action.”
Huddled in the room with her fellow passengers, they spent about 15 minutes locked down before they got the all-clear.
Nigel Gladwyn, who works in one of the terminal’s restaurants, was taking out the trash when he got word about the reported shooter.
“They stopped me before going back on this side of security,” he said, recalling seeing people pour out of the terminal from all available exits.
He said panic grew to a fever pitch when he heard people shout, “he’s coming this way.”
“There’s only one thing you can think about, then,” he said.
Glen Wilmont and his girlfriend were in the food court when the announcement was made, prompting them to dive behind a nearby service counter.
“When we heard the announcement, we all went and found somewhere safe to hide,” he said.
On a layover from Penticton, B.C., to Hamilton, Ont., Wilmont said he had a difficult time making out what the announcement was saying. “I missed the first half of it, it was kind of towards the end when I heard the words shooter, and they were doing an evacuation.”
He said about 10 minutes after the first announcement, a second stated the situation had been “resolved,” followed quickly by a third saying the shooter reports were false, and another stating there was no threat.
Jody Moseley, the airport’s senior communications director, said the evacuation announcement was made out of an abundance of caution.
“It’s for safety that we have these protocols in place,” she said. “The care of our passengers and our staff are No. 1, so we don’t really have the option of second-guessing.”
Flights arriving and departing YYC were delayed in the wake of the incident, and long lines formed at security checkpoints to re-screen passengers who had evacuated the airport.
Police said the call came from an Internet-based voice-over-IP phone line, which allows callers to easily conceal or falsify caller ID information.
She said local police and federal transportation authorities will have a role in the investigation.