Toy grenade forces evacuation of Houston Hobby Airport

HOUSTON — A toy grenade in a passenger’s bag forced the shutdown of a security checkpoint at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport Thursday morning, inconveniencing hundreds of people catching early-morning flights.

Houston Airport System spokesman Bill Begley said people were allowed to approach the checkpoint again after a bomb squad determined that the suspicious item spotted by a Transportation Security Administration agent was a “novelty grenade.”

An Associated Press journalist was in the line when a TSA agent raised an alarm at about 4:35 a.m., forcing hundreds of people to move away from the immediate area on both sides of the security checkpoint.

“My wife and I were waiting to drop our bags into the X-ray machine and go through the detector, and I heard a TSA agent scream “Shut it down, shut it down, shut it down!” Everyone was looking around, confused, and people were ordered to “Clear out now!” the AP’s John L. Mone said.

The explosives scare developed only a day after police detained “an impatient passenger” who made comments about explosives in a bag at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport. Begley said that unidentified passenger’s “inappropriate comment” prompted a bomb squad to close the international terminal for nearly an hour.

The episode created a backlog of at least a thousand people waiting to go through security.

Begley stressed that, especially during the busy summer travel season, anyone with any doubts as to what can be carried on a plane should check the TSA’s “what can I bring? website before packing their bags.