Security ‘Test,’ Nail Clipper Delay Flights
Federal authorities evacuated the Southwest Airlines concourse at Baltimore-Washington International Airport after a woman tried to “test” airport security at a checkpoint, officials said.
Hundreds of passengers were also evacuated from the U.S. Airways terminal at Philadelphia International Airport after a pilot made a remark about a gun.
At BWI, 10 miles outside Baltimore, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered scores of travelers out of the airport’s 16-gate Concourse B at 7:15 a.m. for a security sweep that kept the facility shut nearly three hours.
“An individual was trying to test security, and she has been detained,” FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said. Authorities said the woman was later released.
At a security checkpoint in Philadelphia, a nail clipper was confiscated from a U.S. Airways pilot. That apparently drew what authorities believe to have been a sarcastic remark about a gun.
Twenty flights were delayed during the resulting security sweep. The pilot who made the remark was never located.
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