14 DAY TRIAL // Jacksonville International Airport was closed down on Tuesday after a bomb report. Airport officials have come across at least one "destructive" device in the early hours of the morning.
However, the airport reopened on Tuesday after a bomb squad took two packages out of the area, Detroit Free Press wrote. The airport was closed down for four hours after the bomb threat.
The two suspicious packages were recovered on airport grounds, WJXT reported. The Jacksonville Aviation Authority mentions that one of the packages has been found in a terminal and a second one has been placed in a parking garage.
Police responded to the threat, dispatching a bomb squad to the 2400 Yankee Clipper Drive address at about 6:30 p.m. The location was on lockdown until 11 p.m.
All incoming planes were grounded and held on the tarmac until buses could arrive and transport the passengers to hotels.
"We moved from one spot on the runway to another spot. [...] They told us we couldn’t get off the plane," recalls Arlie Gentry, who arrived at the airport on a Southwest Airlines plane and was stuck there.
His plane landed before 6:30 p.m. and the passengers waited for buses until 9:30 p.m.
"It was determined that because of the seriousness of the situation that they would evacuate the terminal," airport spokesman Michael Stewart described in a press conference.
Witnesses details seeing two men get arrested, but airport officials have not confirmed the news.
"My colleague and I were coming through security, and all of a sudden they stopped everybody that was in security. We looked a couple of lanes over and they were arresting a gentleman in sunglasses. Originally they told us to stand there. Then they started to yell at us to leave," Jennifer Lee describes.
Passenger Catherine Swan-Clark mentions a man walking up to a TSA agent and telling him about a bomb.
"I heard one of the agents say, 'So you're telling me you have a bomb?' And the guy said, 'Yes, I have a bomb,'" she says.