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The Situation Room

Sources: Pentagon Locked Down, Some Floors Evacuated. Aired 11:30-12p ET

Aired June 11, 2026 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:30:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We're following the major breaking news over at the Pentagon. You're looking at live pictures of the Pentagon right now. A very dangerous -- potentially dangerous situation. Multiple floors and corridors inside the Pentagon, we're now being told, are on lockdown. Others are being evacuated.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed that systems within the Pentagon, quote, "have detected an air quality issue necessitating precautionary measures until we determine its significance." Pentagon police are already wearing gas masks and full chemical protective gear.

CNN's national security reporter Haley Britzky is on the story for us. What else are you learning, Haley, right now? Update our viewers.

HALEY BRITZKY, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Wolf. So, as you said, multiple floors and corridors in the Pentagon right now on shelter in place orders. Some other folks being evacuated from the building. We heard from internal guidance sent out to folks in the Pentagon that testing to determine what exactly is happening here could take one to two hours. That response teams are in place and ready to support those occupants in the building if necessary.

As you mentioned, you know, police inside the Pentagon are wearing their gas mask, full chemical protective gear. But heavy emphasis right now, Wolf, on we don't know exactly what is going on. We've heard theories from, you know, biochemical incidents. Obviously, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell saying this was an air quality issue. Others saying that perhaps it was just a something that was triggered, a system that was triggered. And they have to just take every precautionary measure, of course, to make sure that things are fine.

[11:35:00]

So, we're still waiting to determine what exactly happened here. But this is impacting hundreds if not thousands of people in the Pentagon who are now on these shelter in place orders or being evacuated. This is floors two through five. So, those are the floors above the Pentagon. Two through five are sort of the ground level and above. And corridors four through seven. So, there are nine corridors total in the Pentagon. So, that's roughly, you know, half of the corridors there. This is a lot of people who are being impacted. As someone who has been in the Pentagon myself, I mean, even something as simple as a fire drill or, you know, a bag of popcorn smoking in the microwave that triggers the fire alarm, I mean, that empties out a lot of folks. It takes a lot of time to get them out of the building safely and then to have them funnel back in. So, you know, best case scenario, this is a major disruption to people's sort of work days. There's a lot of work being done in the Pentagon, of course, on any given day.

But we're still waiting to see how severe this is, how serious this is. If this was really an incident of some kind or if they're just taking the necessary precautionary measures to make sure that everyone is safe. Wolf.

BLITZER: And they brought in the Arlington Fire Department and the Arlington County Hazardous Materials Team. They're there as well. They're concerned clearly about the air quality inside the Pentagon right now. Is that right, Haley?

BRITZKY: That's absolutely right. That's the main concern that they're trying to determine what exactly is going on. And as we heard from this internal guidance that they are still waiting to do some testing and receive results from that testing. That could take one to two hours to determine what those test results are.

And within this impacted area, obviously, there are many dozens of offices in the building that are in just these affected floors and corridors, including the Navy's public affairs offices are included there. They obviously have a ton of work to be doing with the war with Iran and what's happening in the Middle East. They are constantly busy and working on things there. The secretary of the army's office and his corridor is included here as well. Though we obviously don't have any indication that that he or his staff have been necessarily impacted. But his office is in that space where the floors and corridors are being in shelter in place orders.

So, there's a ton of people who are going to be impacted by this. Hopefully nothing more serious than precautionary measures. Wolf, but something we'll be continuing to keep an eye on and seeing what their test results come back with.

BLITZER: I've been looking at that area outside the Pentagon for the last 20, 30 minutes or so. And I see people running out of that building, obviously out of precaution. They want to get out if, in fact, there's an air quality issue involved in all of this. Pamela.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: We're still waiting to find out what's going on here. As Haley pointed out, it could just be a sensor malfunctioning or something more. We just don't know right now. But, of course, they're taking the necessary precautions.

But I want to bring in John Miller, our chief law enforcement intelligence analyst, to better understand what the process and the procedures are to identify a potential hazard. You just heard Haley talk about the fact it could take a couple of hours to get the full results back of what's going on here. But is there a way for the crews inside to do field screening to get a preliminary idea of what's happening?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So, that's exactly what they're going through. Now, if, in fact, it was a built-in system, an air sensor that was triggered, the first possibility, the most common possibility, is that it's a false positive, that the system read something that ticked one of the sensors for whatever it might be, whether it was the sensor for anthrax or the sensor for toxic chemical or so on, and that the alarm went to the control center and they isolated it to an area. And then you have this response.

Now, why are people, if they don't know what the situation is, running around in full chemical suits, level two suits with masks and protection for hands and feet? That's normal procedure. The idea is you don't want first responders running into a potentially hazardous situation and be the second wave of people to feel ill or go down. So, they're just going by the book there while they use assay equipment to try and figure out, is there a substance here we can find? Can we take air samples? Can we replicate what the sensor found on another sensor? And so, on. That's why this is going to take a couple of hours.

What you see is they'll do the limited evacuation for the area that they believe is affected, where the sensor is sending that alarm. But then there's the real world, which is people may start to feel queasy. Some of this can be psychosomatic.

[11:40:00]

People can begin to talk about that with other people who just say, well, we're not in the part that's being evacuated, but I'm not staying here. What we used to call it in these emergency responses is you would have the people who were affected, if they were affected, and then you had what we called the walking worried, meaning people that just started to feel funny and figured maybe I'm being affected by this and would want to go.

Everything we're seeing unfolding here is normal. The major question that they have to get through, and I think you touched on this, is can we replicate what the sensor is alarming for in all of the systems that we have brought here, some of which will be more sensitive and closer to the area? Can we find some kind of substance? These things can often be triggered by other things. Someone who may be carrying chemical pepper spray as part of something in their purse or their bag, if that goes off.

Certain cleaning fluids and other things can trigger these alarms or make people feel that they're being affected. So, there's a myriad of possibilities. But once you have the Pentagon's force protection chemical people on the scene, their hazardous materials people, Arlington Fire's hazmat teams, very experienced department there, and all of the other equipment that will be brought to bear, they'll run through this. They'll do their risk assessments. They'll look at their results, and hopefully this will resolve as a false positive. The flip side of that is that their sensors match what they find, and that's going to broaden that response. But that's statistically not the most likely outcome. BLITZER: Well, very quickly, John, before I let you go, if they're calling this officially, the Pentagon's force protection agency, a hazardous materials incident, out of an abundance of caution, wouldn't that suggest get the people out of that building as quickly as possible?

MILLER: Well, the sensors work in sectors, in areas where those alarms would go off. If that sensor is only going off in one area, it may not be great risk management to evacuate the entire Pentagon, which, as you know better than I, Wolf, is the size of a middle-sized American city.

So, I think what they're doing is they're doing incident management as best they can to respond properly to the incident, not overreact, but certainly not underreact. And by what we're looking at, it doesn't appear they're underreacting.

BLITZER: No, they're not underreacting. Let's see what happens. All right. John Miller and everybody else, stand by. We'll take another very quick break. Resume special breaking news coverage right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:45:00]

BRITZKY: We're still following the major breaking news right now. Several floors of the Pentagon are on lockdown right now due to what they're calling a hazardous materials incident. I want to bring in CNN Military Analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton and CNN Global Affairs Commentator Sabrina Singh.

We've all been watching this very, very closely. It could be just out of precaution. On the other hand, it could be something much more serious and potentially very dangerous.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, absolutely, Wolf. And, you know, in these situations, you really don't know until, you know, all the proper tests have been completed. And if anybody is symptomatic, let's say it is, you know, something very serious and a chemical attack or something like that, then, of course, you'd have to look for symptoms in people, you know, that could be potential victims. And are the symptoms consistent with an attack like that? We don't see that happening here right now.

And I've not heard of anything that would be the case. And it seems as if we're talking about a malfunction of sensors. If that is true, if that continues to be the case, then it's a much better scenario than could otherwise be the case.

BLITZER: If it's just a malfunction, then it's not a life-threatening situation.

LEIGHTON: Exactly.

BLITZER: But they've got to take precautions. The official statement from the Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, said this. Let me read it to you and our viewers, Sabrina. The Pentagon has sophisticated systems to ensure the safety of the building and its occupants. Those systems have detected an air quality issue, necessitating precautionary measures until we determine its significance. The department is executing standard protection protocols, including a shelter-in-place order for the affected area. Response teams are in place and ready to support building occupants.

You're a former deputy Pentagon press secretary. What do you think?

SABRINA SINGH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR AND FORMER DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: So, we have plans. The Pentagon has multiple different plans for situations like this to ensure that a safe and orderly evacuation is implemented. So, that's what you're seeing.

I mean, even if this is a malfunctioning sensor, they're going to take this very seriously. And so, they're going to employ these plans and slowly start to evacuate people. And I think a point that John Miller brought up earlier, which is important, is that the Pentagon is huge. So, these sensors, wherever it went off, I know Haley's reporting said it was between corridors four and seven. That is literally just one side of the building. There's a whole other side that might be completely fine. And that's why you might not need to evacuate that side right now.

So, I think what they're doing is they're preserving everyone's security by doing this in an orderly fashion. They have to take this threat seriously, whatever it is. And if it is just a malfunctioning sensor, unfortunately, people's days are interrupted for a few hours, but everyone is safe. And that's what's important.

[11:50:00]

BLITZER: That's the most important thing. Everybody being safe. John Miller, you're studying this. You're getting information. What else are you hearing?

MILLER: Basically, the update is that they are working through this sensor issue on the idea that it could be a false positive. But they have to be positive. It's a false positive. So, they're trying to resolve it with their teams on the scene and their assay equipment to determine, can they recreate this finding or can they discount it?

BLITZER: Yes, there's a lot of work that needs to be done to make sure it's still safe to be inside the Pentagon right now. All right. We'll stay on top of this, continue our coverage. We'll take another quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:55:00]

BROWN: All right. I want to go straight to our colleague Haley Britzky. Haley, we've been working the phones, talking to our sources, and we're both being told that this seems to be a false alarm from a sensor at the Pentagon. Is that what you're hearing as well?

BRITZKY: Yes, Pam, that's exactly what I'm hearing as well. The source is saying that this was due to a sensor malfunction that triggered this shelter in place. Obviously, though, we know the Pentagon, even if it was a malfunction, they're going to take this extremely seriously, as we've seen over the last little while here, saying that, you know, hazardous material teams were in the building responding. They were conducting tests of the air to ensure that things were safe for folks, putting people in affected floors and corridors and shelter in place.

So, it really just goes to show that even if it is something like a malfunction, they are still going to respond as if it's a very legitimate and concerning issue to ensure that the thousands of people in the Pentagon are safe, Pam.

BROWN: Yes, I think that that's an important point. But we also want to, and as you said, emphasize that this is preliminary, right? They believe that this was a false alarm. But, of course, they wouldn't wait for that testing, which could take a couple of hours, to definitively say so, right? And I think that's important. And it's also important for our viewers to understand that, you know, as it pertains to the Iran War, a lot of the operations are being done by CENTCOM, right, and bases in the area, not necessarily directly out of the Pentagon. So, the operations and the, you know, planning and everything is still ongoing.

SINGH: The planning is still ongoing. Everyone from the secretary to the chairman, I mean, command and control was still maintained. It's just a disruption. And that's why, I mean, the Pentagon is an incredible organization because it's a planning organization. It plans for situations like this. If there is a disruption, if the Pentagon needs to be shut down, that does not mean the U.S. military shuts down.

In fact, you know, we can still operate from anywhere in the world. And so, that, I mean, it shows the incredible amount of planning that can go into this to ensure also safety of personnel.

BLITZER: Yes.

LEIGHTON: And that's one of the key things, you know, that Sabrina pointed out here is that we're very different from other militaries. If this had happened to another military headquarters somewhere else in the world, it would have actually shut down operations. But because of our unique setup, the operations actually are handled by the command that's responsible for that theater and the subordinate commands within that theater. So, that's why, you know, those redundancies really do make a difference. And cases like this point to how important they really are.

BROWN: For sure.

BLITZER: And we'll, of course, continue to monitor what's going on. It's an important development indeed.

BROWN: Yes. Anytime the Pentagon is locked down, that is an important development. So --

BLITZER: And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

BROWN: Inside Politics with our friend and colleague Dana Bash starts after a quick break.

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[12:00:00]