A small Pennsylvania airport was shut down Friday night after a suspicious package was present in the checked baggage of a flight to Chicago.
Authorities later said the bag didn’t contain anything dangerous and that the airport would reopen at 4am on Saturday.
The passenger terminal at University Park Airport in State College, Pennsylvania, was evacuated “out of utmost caution” at around 6:30 p.m. after a suspicious item was detected by airport security, police and the Penn State University Department of Public Safety he said on Twitter.
Police said law enforcement officers and an explosive device team arrived to envision checked baggage, while about 100 passengers were flown to nearby Penn State University for shelter.
State College, about 135 miles east of Pittsburgh, is the house of Penn State.
The airport was closed and a ground detention order was issued by the Federal Aviation Administration as officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies inspected the bag.
Bomb technicians later determined there was nothing dangerous inside, said Lisa Farbstein, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration. She added that explosives-sniffing dogs are searching the terminal as they prepare to reopen the airport.
It wasn’t clear which Chicago airport the checked baggage was flying to.
Earlier this week, a 40-year-old man was arrested on federal charges after checking a suitcase containing explosives on a flight to Florida from Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Authorities said Marc Muffley of Lansford, Pennsylvania, checked baggage at Lehigh Valley International Airport on Monday that had been tagged by an alarm system. After passing security on the airport, authorities said Mr Muffley left the airport five minutes after being asked to report back to security.
According to the criminal criticism, the explosive present in Mr Muffley’s bag was roughly three inches in diameter and was fabricated from industrial firework powder and flash powder.
He was charged with possession of an explosive on the airport and having or attempting to position an explosive or incendiary device on board the aircraft.
Mike Ives contributed to the report.
