Metro

JFK terminal evacuated after man slips through ‘secure’ doors

An unidentified man carrying a bag strolled through two secure doors at JFK this afternoon without being stopped, triggering the evacuation of thousands of passengers and grounding all flights Terminal 8, sources said.

He remains at large, and is the target of a TSA and Port Authority Police manhunt. The terminal was reopened at around 6:30 p.m., after a three-hour shutdown.

The man was inside the American Airlines first-class lounge, which is beyond the passenger screening area, when video-surveillance footage captured him passing through the first door near Gate 5 unchecked at 3:06 p.m., the sources said.

The AP reported that the man had just gotten off a flight from Orlando when he went through a door supposed to only be used by airport employees. Terminal 8 handles both domestic and international flights for American Airlines.

It’s unclear what was in his bag.

A minute later he’s seen walking past a second secure door and then exiting the terminal at the ground level three minutes after the initial breach, sources said.

At 3:19 p.m. an American Airlines employee noticed the breach and called Port Authority cops, who responded within seconds, the sources added.

All inbound and outbound flights at the busy terminal were stopped at 3:32 p.m. and all passengers were forced to evacuate 13 minutes later.

Cops were searching the area with dogs, as thousands of travelers had to go through re-screening.

“They have to figure out a better way to deal with security breaches,” fumed passenger Kathryn Allen, 54, who had already boarded her connecting flight home to Washington, D.C.

“We weren’t a part of this… and they don’t tell us what’s going on,” she added.

The security meltdown was similar to one on Jan. 3 at Newark Airport, when Haisong Jiang, a 28-year-old Rutgers bio-medical research grad student, sneaked past a guard to enter a secure area to kiss his girlfriend goodbye.

Jiang was charged with defiant trespass.