Security incidents were reported at two known U.S. airports on Tuesday, one day after two bombs detonated and killed 3 during the marathon in downtown Boston on Monday. Sections of Laguardia Airport were evacuated on Tuesday morning following a report of a suspicious package, the New York Police Department said, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
A Port Authority spokeswoman said the suspicious package was found on the third floor of the Central Terminal Building at Laguardia Airport in an area overlooking the food court and outside the security barrier, news reports said. An FAA spokesman added that the airport's Terminal B was evacuated.
The NYPD has stepped up its security, notably at hotels and other landmark locations such as the Empire State Building and buildings near Times Square since the bombings at the Boston Marathon.
"We won't let the attack in Boston keep us from our normal daily routines," New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said, encouraging New Yorkers - and the rest of the country- to remain vigilant but to move forward since the terrorism hit the U.S. for the first time since the 9/11 attacks.
A U.S. Airways flight going into Boston's Logan airport from Philadelphia was pulled off the runway also on Tuesday and its luggage was searched after security found out a suitcase had not been checked before being placed on. The luggage was laid out on the runway and searched by security personnel, until authorities concluded that the incident was not related to Monday's bomb explosions, The Daily Mail reported.
Also on Tuesday afternoon, American Airlines grounded its flights temporarily after experiencing nationwide outages in its reservation system. All fights on the ground are held at their gates until the computer glitch is fixed, the airline said. All planes currently in the air will still be allowed to land. The delay is scheduled to be lifted at about 5 p.m. on Tuesday, NBC News reported.
