Lankan arrested for security breach at Heathrow airport

Prior to Queen Elizabeth 11 opens new terminal:

By Walter JAYAWARDHANA

LONDON, Saturday - Mystery surrounds why the twenty seven year old Sri Lankan Tamil Ketheeswara Uthayakumar has committed one of the worst security breaches at London's main Heathrow Airport.

He was scheduled to appear at Uxbridge Magistrate court in West London to face a charge of aircraft endangerment after being arrested by police near the Northern runway last Thursday.

The security breach came less than 24 hours before Queen Elizabeth II opened a 4.3 billion new terminal, named as 'terminal 5' for England's busiest airport.

Eyewitnesses told Police that Ketheeswaran Udayakumar scaled the airport fence before running across runway 27 in front of an Emirates Jet.

Police said they arrested him after he was surrounded by armed policemen. According to eyewitness accounts the Police arrested him when he was sprinting in to the path of a plane on a runway just after 2 p.m.

Since the Queen was to visit the airport to open the newly built runway in less than a day, the incident by the Sri Lankan Tamil triggered a major security alert.

The man carrying a backpack allegedly climbed over a fence of Heathrow's Northern runway, dumped the bag on the grass perimeter, and ran into the path of an Emirates 777 Boeing jet.

He was being held in custody before being produced at Uxbridge magistrate's court, police sources said.

The incident immediately caused flight delays and cancellations.

The partial closing down of the Northern runway caused the flight delays and cancellations.

The incident was the second time Heathrow's security has been breached during the last few weeks.

A team of Green Peace agitators walked into a runway last month climbed on to a Boeing 777 and unfurled a huge banner protesting against the Airport expansion.

Two days later a group called Plane Stupid breached the security of the Westminster parliament, climbed on to its roof and unfurled a huge banner for the same protest. But both groups denied involvement in the Sri Lankan Tamil incident.

The bag he was carrying has been found to have contained only clothes. London's Metro newspaper said: "The ease with which he evaded detection and scaled the 15 feet fence is deeply worrying for security officials.

One security insider said What if he had been a suicide bomber and had reached the plane? The consequences could have been catastrophic!"

Courtesy: Asian Tribune