Bomb Scare Clears Seattle Airport

A war relic that a youngster carried home on a flight from Europe caused a bomb scare and partial evacuation Friday at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, authorities said.

The artillery shell, picked up from a European battlefield by a youth on a bicycle trip, dropped out of a bicycle box being unloaded from Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 937 from Copenhagen, said Police Chief Ed Ingram of the Port of Seattle.

Ingram said an adviser had told the youth to get rid of the device before the return home but the youngster, whom he did not identify, had not done so.

The device was about a foot long and three inches in diameter, said Margo Spellman, airport spokeswoman. It was not immediately known whether it was capable of exploding.

The shell was placed onto a truck and taken to a concrete bomb bunker away from the terminal where it was found. That terminal, a satellite of the main terminal normally used by Northwest Airlines, Japan Air lines and Scandinavian Airlines, was reopened about an hour later, Spellman said.

People considered to be in a danger zone were evacuated almost immediately, and a bomb squad and canine unit checked the area.