LaGuardia Airport Reopens
LaGuardia Airport in New York reopens after bomb scare…
One of the terminals at New York’s busy LaGuardia Airport temporarily closed by Authorities on Saturday morning after a man entered the building with a fake bomb in a bag, police said. Then Authorities took a man into custody after discovering what turned out to be a fake bomb in his bag.
The scare was over in a few hours, but it disrupted travel plans for thousands of people as flights were postponed and vehicle traffic to the airport was briefly halted. Delays also rippled across the country as airlines adjusted their schedules.
Authorities identified the man as Scott McGann, 32, of New York. He had a ticket on a United Airlines flight that was headed to Chicago, with connecting flights that would have ultimately taken him to Oakland, Calif. McGann faces charges including placing a false bomb in a transportation facility and making terroristic threats.
The trouble began shortly after 5 a.m., when McGann checked in for a flight and immediately began attracting attention because of bizarre behavior. Police received two calls about an apparently intoxicated or suspicious passenger before he had even reached a security checkpoint, said John Kelly, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Security officials said he was “just acting crazy,” Kelly said. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said the man was drunk. “He was carrying a hoax device,” Browne said. “The hoax device consisted of batteries and wires in a duffle bag.”
Authorities detained McGann when he didn’t respond to questions. A search of his bag turned up an assemblage of batteries and wires that police thought was intended to look like a bomb, Kelly said.
The terminal was evacuated at around 5:30 a.m. Investigators quickly determined that the device wasn’t dangerous, but travelers became inconvenienced as flights were postponed and traffic backed up outside. Passengers didn’t get back in to the terminal until close to 9 a.m.
LaGuardia handles about 70 flights per hour, both departures and arrivals.
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