Semi-Automatic Pistol Found in Carry-On Luggage at Baltimore Airport
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Canine teams searched two terminals at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport Friday morning after screeners discovered a firearm in a carry-on at a security checkpoint.
Police said there was no indication it was a terrorism incident.
Authorities held onto the carry-on, but its owner continued through the checkpoint and disappeared, prompting Maryland Transportation Authority police to evacuate concourses A and B, said BWI spokesman Jonathan Dean. Those concourses serve one of the airport's largest carriers, Southwest Airlines, Dean said.
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"We simply were acting with all due precaution, the item is being held," Dean said.
The recovered gun was a .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol manufactured by Raven Arms, said Transportation Security Administration police spokesman Jonathan Green.
Police and security personnel searched without success for a man in his early 30s dressed in blue jeans and a red and black sweat suit track jacket, Green said.
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The concourses were reopened about 90 minutes after the 6:40 a.m. incident and all passengers were being required to go through screening again.
"There is no indication that this was a terrorism incident," Green said. "It appears to just be a traveler with a handgun in his luggage, but we won't know for certain until we find the guy," Dean said.
The incident caused more than a dozen morning flight delays, said Cheryl Stewart, an airport spokeswoman.