Albuquerque airport sweep turns up nothing

Personnel reported that someone wasn't screened

An Albuquerque Sunport spokeswoman said the evacuation took under an hour and rescreening passengers caused relatively short delays.

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- Flights at Albuquerque's airport were all but back to normal by late morning Wednesday, after a security breach forced the evacuation of thousands of people at a time when the facility was full of passengers.

Albuquerque International Sunport spokeswoman Maggie Santiago said that personnel at the airport's sole security checkpoint reported at about 8:10 a.m. MDT (10:10 a.m. EDT) that someone had gotten past the checkpoint without being screened .

Officials immediately emptied the airport -- including planes that were in the boarding process -- and conducted a security sweep. Within 20 minutes, Santiago said, the checkpoint was again in operation and passengers were being rescreened.

The passenger backup was gone before 11 a.m., she said.

"It looks like a couple flights still have a little bit of a backup, but our crisis is pretty much over," Santiago said.

The security sweep turned up nothing suspicious, the spokeswoman said.

"Chances are the individual ... was included in the group that was evacuated."