A part of Miami International Airport was evacuated on Thursday after airport security screeners thought a passenger had a grenade. The grenade turned out to be a cigarette lighter which was shaped like the explosive.
According to Reuters, TSA agents saw the fake grenade at around 5:00 a.m. during a screening. They called the Miami-Dade Police bomb squad. After an inspection, the bomb squad determined that the device was a lighter the size of a business card. It was not an explosive, Detective Alvaro Zabaleta told Reuters.
"People do things sometimes without thinking," Alvararo Zabaleta said according to the New York Daily News. "This guy didn't use much common sense."
Miami International Airport spokesman Marc Henderson was even angrier over the incident.
"I would like to know, 12 years after 9/11, why some people in the public still don't seem to have gotten the memo that you don't bring prohibited items or novelty items in the shape of weapons to the airport and expect to get them through TSA checkpoints?" Henderson told the Orlando Sentinel. "Even if the Boston marathon bombings had not happened, we're vigilant at all times."
The area around the checkpoint and three other security checkpoints on Concourse D were closed during an investigation that took two hours. The incident did not delay flights as passengers were sent to other checkpoints.
"Passengers could still get to their flights just not as conveniently," airport spokesman Greg Chin said.
The police didn't make any arrests in the incident. The airport was operating as usual by 7:00 a.m.
Zabaleta saw the incident as good practice."The security measures are working, and all the protocols were followed properly in this case," Zabaleta told the News.
This isn't the first time a novelty grenade forced an airport to evacuate. In September, JFK Airport in New York was evacuated due to a paperweight that was designed like a grenade.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
