14 DAY TRIAL // A package believed to contain explosives prompted an early morning evacuation at North Terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport today, Monday, April 1.
The item was discovered at a security checkpoint and was dubbed suspicious by airport personnel. The carry-on luggage was scanned with X-ray equipment, after which an alert was issued.
According to Fox News, authorities locked down a section of the North Terminal in Romulus at around 6:15 a.m. A bomb squad was dispatched to the lobby, and officers gave an “all clear” two hours after the scare.
My Fox Detroit reported that bomb teams responded to an alert about an “explosive device,” they removed the object but did not give any information about its nature.
“At 5:50 this morning, a suspicious object was found at a TSA passenger screening checkpoint at Detroit Metro Airport's North Terminal.
“TSA immediately notified Airport Authority Police, out of an abundance of caution, moved all passengers and employees a safe distance from the screening checkpoint until the Explosive Ordinance Detection (EOD) unit could safely remove the item from the terminal,” airport authorities said in a press release.
At 8:20 a.m., passengers were allowed back to the segment of the terminal that had been under lockdown. Travelers have been directed to the Smith Terminal while operations to assess the gravity of the threat were in place.
“EOD removed the suspicious item from the terminal and transported it to a secure location for further investigation. The TSA screening checkpoint and North Terminal resumed normal operations by 8:20 a.m.
“This response was a strong team effort by Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Airport Authority Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and airline personnel.
“Because the investigation surrounding this incident is ongoing, no further details are available at this time,” the airport statement reads.