Boston airport apologizes for holding realistic drill on 9/11
Boston Logan International Airport, in Massachusetts.
September 11 is a sensitive day of remembrance for many in America — and also happened to the be the day that Boston's Logan International Airport chose to conduct a realistic safety drill, complete with smoke.
Airport authorities warned that a drill with smoke would be performed on their Twitter and Facebook pages, but that wasn't enough to staunch criticism of the date chosen, which quickly erupted acros the Internet. The airport soon had a PR disaster on its hands.
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Others felt that the timing of the drill wasn't a problem, and noted that such drills contribute to collective safety.
Massport publicly apologized for the timing of the event on their Facebook page Wednesday. "Massport apologizes for conducting the fire training exercise and understands that it may have offended many of those touched by the events of Sept. 11," they wrote, adding "Safety and security is our top priority and constant vigilance and readiness is critical, but the exercise should not have taken place on the anniversary of 9/11."
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick had harsher words for the decision making behind the drill, according to the Boston Globe.
“I didn’t know it was going to happen, and it’s just dumb,” Patrick said. “The timing could not be worse.”
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