The story refferenced above is a little innacurate and is of course fueling a liitle bit of a fire as to how the incident was handled and who did what. I am a TSA Officer at PHL and was working at checkpoint B when this occured. Below is a copy of a post i made this afternoon on airliners.net. If anyone would like to view that thread, go to airliners.net and look for the thread titled: Bomb scare at PHL. Hopefully I can help you all by making sure you have accurate information to generate you opinions from. We've all had bad experiences with TSA. I travel too and while I've never experienced anything too bad, I've delt with shoe carnivals and feel your pain and aggravation on that one.




Around 7:30am today, Terminals B and C were shut down and everyone in the ticketing area was evacuated because a replica of a pipe bomb was found in the checked bag of a female US Airways passenger. The screening machine alerted the TSA Officer to the suspect bag. After viewing the image, he alerted an airport police Officer who called for the bomb squad and the fire department. The bag contained a large metal pipe with what appeared to be blasting caps, two ammunition magazines and some kind of organic material. All together these things resemble a big problem. The bomb squad took control of the area and upon inspection found that the item did not contain any explosive material and that the item was a replica to be used in the filming of a movie. The all clear was given at around 9am and passengers were aloud to proceed to thier gates by 9:20. US Airways held as many flights as possible, although some went without all of thier passengers. The security checkpoints handled the rush of people very well and the backlog was gone by 10:30am. The secure areas of the airport were never evauated, just the ticketing lobby and baggage areas behind the ticket counters.
http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_176103253.html
kyw.com - Suspicious Package Clears Two Airport Terminals

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?se...cal&id=4304518
6abc.com: Evacuation at Philadelphia International