Aviation securityThe last romantic: student who breached airport security to kiss girlfriend fined $3,000
A Rutgers University graduate student who breached Newark Airport’s security to kiss his girlfriend is fined $3,000 by TSA; the breach, committed after a guard left his post, shut down Terminal C for six hours, stranded 16,000 passengers, delayed 100 flights, and canceled 27 others
Haisong Jiang, whose goodbye kiss to his girlfriend in a restricted area of Newark Liberty International Airport led to a shutdown of one of the U.S. busiest transit hubs over New Year’s Day weekend, has been fined $3,000 by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
The civil penalty, combined with Jiang’s completion of 100 hours of community service in June and paying of $658 in municipal court fines and costs, ends the case against the Rutgers doctoral student from China whose kiss was debated around the world.
TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said a fine was assessed in an amount the regulatory agency felt was “most appropriate, given the serious nature of his actions on Jan. 3 and the impacts they had on airport operations and the traveling public.”
The Star-Ledger’s Mike Frassinelli writes that Jiang, 28, ducked under a security belt and entered a secure area of Newark Airport to give his girlfriend one last goodbye kiss while seeing her off on her flight to California.
The breach, committed after a guard left his post, shut down Terminal C for six hours, stranded 16,000 passengers, delayed 100 flights, and canceled 27 others.
The stolen goodbye kiss prompted debates among newspapers in China, was cited during hearings in the Senate building in Washington, D.C., and was compared to the goodbye scene in “Casablanca” with Humphrey Bogart telling Ingrid Bergman, :Here’s looking at you, kid.”
“I like her too much,” Jiang said during an interview with the Star-Ledger in March, after he pleaded guilty in Newark to a petty disorderly persons offense of defiant trespass.
Davis said Jiang’s actions on 3 January resulted in transportation security violations that included tampering with security procedures and entering a secured area. “From our standpoint, this is a resolution of the matter,” Davis said.
Jiang’s lawyer, Eric Bruce, of the law firm Kobre & Kim, said Jiang feels like he was treated fairly. He said Jiang, who is doing research for a cure for glaucoma, is in the final stages of his doctoral program. “Mr. Jiang looks forward to closing this chapter, continuing the important research he’s doing to cure glaucoma, and moving on with his life,” Bruce said.
