Smelly Shoes Prompt Airport Evacuation
TWA’s international terminal at Kennedy Airport was evacuated for an hour Saturday after shoes in a passenger’s bag were found with traces of nitrates - a compound found in both bombs and fertilizer, officials said.
The terminal was evacuated at 4:25 p.m. when an X-ray screening device showed the potential of a bomb and a bomb-sniffing dog confirmed the machine’s suspicions.
But a police bomb squad found the nitrates were on the shoes only and there was no bomb, allowing passengers to return to the terminal at 5:35 p.m., said Port Authority Sgt. Donald Kupper.
Kupper said the evacuation caused delays in many TWA flights.