JFK Airport Grenade Scare Prompts Evacuation

A newly opened Jet Blue and U.S. Air terminal at JFK Airport on Long Island was evacuated today after screeners discovered what appeared to be grenades in a passenger's checked luggage. Upon closer inspection, the "grenades" turned out to be World War II replicas of grenades fashioned into paperweights.

The terminal at JFK Airport was evacuated at about 7:50 a.m. and reopened 25 minutes later. While the JFK Airport grenade scare caused flight delays, an airline spokesperson described them as minimal, according to a UK Channel 4 news report. Security at JFK Airport is heightened this week with the United Nation's General Assembly in session.

Whatever the airline passenger at JFK Airport was thinking when bringing replica grenades onto an airplane, he was not the first to trigger a security alert or evacuation due to improvident packing.

An actual grenade not capable of detonation and carried in luggage as a military souvenir triggered a similar scare at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut in 2007.

Some other odd yet innocent airport luggage that has triggered security alerts or evacuations include:

Wired Cheese Bricks and Clay Filled Ice Packs

Today's JFK Airport evacuation reminded me of traveling to Wisconsin last summer the morning after the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) published an Intelligence Bulletin announcing the discovery of suspicious items in 4 airports nationwide, including both my departure and destination airports. My interesting travel experience, which you can read here, stemmed from a series of unrelated individuals packing such items as cheese and ice packs filled with clay, attached with duct tape to switches, wires and cell phone chargers. The JFK Airport was not one of the airports involved in last summer's spate of suspicious luggage.

Electronic Game Board with Exposed Wiring