Fort Wayne, IN) - A bomb scare last night forced the evacuation of two planes and the secured area of Fort Wayne International Airport.
All the passengers had to be re-screened through the security checkpoint once the suspicious metal case had been blown up.
More than fifty people had already made it past the security checkpoint here at the airport when they were taken off planes and away from their gates, and evacuated to another part of the building while the bomb squad examined the suspicious metal case.
A custodian found the ten by twelve metal carry-on bag in the upstairs women's bathroom in the secured area of the terminal.
There's no way to tell how long it had been there.
Since the metal case had no nametag, and no one came to claim it after several announcements were made over the intercom, the bag was examined at the security checkpoint.
Sandra Lux is with the Fort Wayne International Airport and says, "They sent it through the security checkpoint a couple of times, through the X-rays. It was determined there was a lot of wiring inside, some unidentifiable objects that they weren't sure was inside."
So did the bag get past the security screeners at Fort Wayne International, or did it come in on another flight?
Operations Director Mike Olson, with the Fort Wayne International Airport says, “When we imploded the case, there was snack food that's given on an aircraft. We found wrappers of snack foods that are given on aircraft. So it probably came from an inbound flight."
Aaron Batt from the Transportation Security Administration says one of the reasons they're fairly sure the bag did not originate here in Fort Wayne, was that once it was found, they got all of the screeners together and none of them remembered seeing the bag.
Normally, a bag containing suspicious items, like wiring and electronics, would be opened and checked by hand.
This once appeared to contain electronic devices like a game-boy.
But since it was locked, with no owner, they weren't sure it wasn't booby-trapped.
Aaron Batt, with the Transportation Security Administration says, "The items in it were perfectly legal, were able to be through, could process through the security check point. However, because we could not determine any ownership of the bag, we wanted to err on the side of safety."
The Fort Wayne bomb squad blew up the case on the tarmac, and passengers were allowed back on the planes and to their gates after about an hour delay.
A woman has since called the airport, looking for her metal case, and was dismayed to learn it had been destroyed.
This is just one more reason not to leave your bags unattended. (Edited by Nicole Hahn.)
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