LaGuardia Airport's central terminal was evacuated Saturday after a Manhattan kook was busted with a fake bomb in his bag, authorities said.The NYPD Bomb Squad investigated, and it turned out the suspect had a bunch of batteries taped together to look like dynamite with wires sticking out, sources said. After the 6 a.m. scare, thousands of passengers were rushed out of the concourse and even herded off planes waiting to take off on the runway.
Flights in and out of the airport were grounded indefinitely, and air traffic across the country was expected to be delayed as a result. Richard Bock, 59, a Gramercy Park psychologist had been waiting to get on a plane with his wife and 7-year-old daughter to fly to a wedding in Milwaukee. Michael Joseph, 29, of Mamaroneck was on the tarmac on a Southwest Airlines plane, heading to Chicago for his sister’s 2 p.m. wedding.
“They said they had a [Transportation Security Administration] emergency and we had to evacuate. People were very confused.” The scare started when the suspect was going through security screening, trying to get on United Flight 667 to Chicago with Oakland, Calif., his final destination, sources said. A TSA employee thought he was acting strange and called over the Port Authority police. A cop spotted wires and fuse sticking out of the bag. Cops tacked him, grabbed the bag and called NYPD bomb squad while Terminal B, Concourse C was evacuated.
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