Airport Reopened; Package HarmlessBy Chris Ramirez
Journal Staff WriterPyrotechnics used by a Russian dance troupe were sniffed out by a police dog trained to detect explosives, prompting the partial evacuation of the Albuquerque International Sunport.
The west terminal of the state's largest airport was emptied and closed for about two hours Thursday while a police bomb squad and federal officials sifted through the bag and its contents.
In the end, the item was deemed harmless. "There were some things that, rightly so, caught people's attention," said Brig. Gen. Annette Sobel, head of homeland security for New Mexico.
The package was in a piece of luggage that had been checked at a Delta ticket window, said Maggie Santiago, a spokeswoman for the federal Transportation Safety Administration. Once checked, the bag was X-rayed and a TSA employee discovered the item.
Aviation police dog Robbie was called in and confirmed "a hit" on the bag.
The FBI, the Albuquerque bomb squad and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were notified, and the west side of the terminal was evacuated just after 11 a.m., said Sobel, an Air National Guard general.
(Russian Dance Troupe Pyrotechnics in Luggage)