A man allegedly bypassed security checkpoints at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport on Friday and vanished into thin air. At least, the officials who scoured planes at Charlotte and at 15 other airports following the security breach couldn’t find him.

Just before 8 a.m. on Friday, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) noticed that a man had gotten past security that morning. Agency spokesman Jon Allen said that flights were stopped and the concourse of the airport was shut down in an effort to find the man.

After searching planes at the airport, officials tracked down planes that head left in the period between the security breach and the shut down. Fifteen flights had taken off during that time according to Chris White, a spokesman for the TSA.

“Our priority is to ensure that Charlotte and the other airports where aircraft landed are secure,” White said. “We need to make sure the entire system is secure.”

Officials say that it is too early to tell whether or not the event was maliciously motivated or whether someone was simply confused about security procedures.

“We will look into how this incident occurred and what we can do to ensure that it does not happen again,” White said.

By late afternoon, the TSA abandoned the search, speculating that the man may have simply left the airport.