Broken X-ray machine causes lengthy delays at Sonoma County airport

An X-ray screening machine broke down at Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport on Tuesday, causing lengthy delays for hundreds of passengers waiting to board their flights.

Transportation Security Administration officers had to hand search passengers’ carry-on luggage after the machine stopped working around 10:45 a.m., more than doubling the time it typically takes to go through the security checkpoint, airport manager Jon Stout said. It took until Tuesday night to fix the machine, Stout said.

During the day, it took about 30 to 40 minutes to get passengers through the checkpoint, he said. However, some passengers reported longer wait times.

It was unclear what caused the machine to break down. The airport notified the TSA’s coordination center in Oakland about the problem. The federal agency did not return several messages Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s not a common issue, but it has happened in the past,” Stout said of the broken machine. “The times that it has happened, we haven’t had so many people in such a short period of time.”

Six flights were scheduled to depart within about a two-hour window Tuesday morning. Stout said the airport notified airlines of the security screening delay, though the airlines had the final say on whether to delay flights. He was not aware of anyone missing their flight.

A flight to Portland scheduled to depart at 12:55 p.m. was delayed by about 20 minutes, the airport’s online flight ?status website showed. A Dallas- bound flight scheduled for 1 p.m. also departed more than an hour and a half after its scheduled takeoff.

Dena Lash of Santa Rosa said she and her husband waited in line for almost two hours before they passed through the airport’s security checkpoint. Their flight to Phoenix departed at about 1:30 p.m., roughly an hour later than its initial scheduled time.

The situation was made worse by a lack of communication by airport and airlines staff about the broken machine and subsequent delay, Lash said.

“It was really frustrating,” Lash said. “If people knew what was going on and there was proper communication, it would have been fine.”

Five other flights were scheduled later Tuesday afternoon, though their departure times were spread further apart, which helped keep lines short at the security checkpoint, Stout said.