Shoe bomb scare at San Francisco airport

12:00 pm - By ANDREW GUMBEL

LOS ANGELES - A terminal at San Francisco international airport was evacuated yesterday after a passenger described as a white male in his 40s tested positive for explosive traces on his shoes and promptly vanished from the security checkpoint.

Police launched a search for the man, but failed to locate him as hundreds of travellers were herded outside the United Airlines terminal building at the height of the morning rush.

Airport officials said they were not sure whether he deliberately ran away, or whether he simply walked off without realising that security officials had not finished with him.

"When they came back to ask him more questions, he was gone," airport spokesman Mike McCarron said. "He was lost in the crowd. He just walked away."

The man had been selected for a random security search – a procedure introduced in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Shoe tests have become a standard part of such searches since the arrest of Richard Reid, the British man restrained on board a Paris to Miami flight after he lit a match and apparently attempted to set off explosives hidden in his high-ankle sports shoes.

Shortly before 7 am local time, the security guards at San Francisco wiped a piece of gauze over the man's shoes and then entered it into a machine, which came back with a positive reading. Mr McCarron said the identified substance could have been anything from fireworks residue to nitroglycerin.

It was not immediately clear whether airport officials knew the man's name, or whether his face had been captured on a video surveillance camera.

As many as 3000 people were told to leave the United Airlines terminal, San Francisco's busiest by far, and were left milling about on the pavement outside for up to three hours. Some of them were pulled off departing flights and told to go back.

Security officials then checked the building for unauthorised people and suspicious packages, then reopened the terminal for normal business.

"We've searched the terminal. It's safe and secure," another airport spokesman, Ron Wilson, said. "It's unfortunate that one individual can cause this madness." The stoppage played havoc with air connections across the United States.

Similar incidents have occurred sporadically at various US airports in recent weeks, and it has often been hard to tell whether the scare was genuine or the result of panic.

A concourse at Miami international airport was evacuated on Monday night after a man told security personnel that they had failed to spot a gun in his bag. He too walked off, and could not be found.

Last week, an Israeli man alerted airport security both in New York and Tel Aviv after he realised he had inadvertently travelled with his pistol in his hand luggage. It was not picked up by security checks at either end of his trip.

- INDEPENDENT