Passengers faced major travel disruption at Miami International Airport (MIA) on Sunday after an unattended piece of luggage in the departures concourse caused a bomb scare and the partial evacuation of the terminal.
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office was called in to investigate, and the luggage was deemed ‘suspicious’, resulting in the closure of TSA checkpoints and all passengers and staff being evacuated outside.
During the partial evacuation, rumors spread amongst the crowd that there had been a shooting, resulting in a “huge panic” as people rushed to get outside the airport.
Eugene Katchalov, a passenger who was hoping to fly from Miami to Munich, Germany, on Sunday evening, provided a blow-by-blow account of the unfolding situation in a series of posts on X.
“Crazy situation at the Miami airport now. Just as I checked in and was about to go towards security, there was some kind of “pop,” and a huge panic started. Everyone started to run for the exits,” Eugene wrote.
Eugene spent hours waiting in various lines to get back into the terminal and clear the security checkpoint, only to then discover that his flight had been cancelled.
Some passengers waiting to board a SWISS International Air Lines flight to Zurich were evacuated onto the tarmac. The flight ended up departing Miami around three hours late at 11:00 pm on Sunday.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Miami Airport said the unattended luggage was discovered close to Door 21, which led to the closure of security checkpoints for concourses G, H, and J and the evacuation of the surrounding areas.
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office later gave the all-clear and allowed the airport to reopen, although it quickly became apparent that normal operations would take some time to resume.
Passengers crowded around the TSA checkpoints as they waited to be allowed back in, but further delays were reported as the airport first worked to rescreen employees.
Airlines ended up cancelling around 148 flights from Miami on Sunday, and a further 185 flights were delayed. Much of that disruption was, however, also linked to severe winter weather that was impacting destination airports across the United States.
