TURBULENT TIMES

Florida Airport Terminal Evacuated After Passenger’s Bag Bomb Threat

The remaining passengers were corralled in the concourse as security swept the area, a relative told The Daily Beast.

A passenger aboard a budget airline flight in Florida was detained by police after saying he had a bomb in his bag, prompting the evacuation of an entire terminal on Tuesday evening, a spokesperson for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said. Bomb squad members and the FBI were checking two passenger bags after the “utterance” of the passenger aboard the Frontier Airlines flight at Palm Beach International Airport, as the spokesperson characterized it to WPTV, which first reported the threat. Danielle Matthews, the sister of a woman aboard the flight in question, told The Daily Beast that the plane had been destined to fly to Philadelphia that evening. Instead, the remaining passengers were deplaned and corralled near the gate. “They’re currently sweeping the entire area and the plane,” Matthews said. Her sister, when reached by text, said that all of the concourse’s stores and restaurants had been closed, with the flight’s passengers left waiting around for updates. Frontier Airlines did not immediately respond to an afters-hours request for comment.