US airport terminal evacuated

A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated tonight after two bottles of liquid found in a woman’s carry-on luggage twice tested positive for explosives.

“The bomb squad is on site and the woman is being interviewed by the FBI,” Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Amy von Walter said.

“It looks like there were four items containing liquids … two of those containers tested positive.”

US authorities banned the carrying of liquids on to flights last week after the arrest of 21 people in London in an alleged plot to blow up US-bound planes using explosives disguised as drinks and other common products.

Airport manager Larry Salyers said he was told the 28-year-old woman was originally from Pakistan.

A screener noticed the bottle in her bag as she prepared to board a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, said airport authority boss Jim Booton.

Salyers said the bottles would be moved by robot to a remote area of the airport where officials would attempt to detonate them.

National Guard and State Police explosive experts will conduct chemical field tests to determine what is inside them, he said.

Salyers said he was told the 28-year-old woman was originally from Pakistan but had moved to Huntington from Jackson, Michigan. He did not know how long she had lived in Huntington. She was heading to Detroit.

The woman was still at Tri-State airport tonight, but was not under arrest, said FBI spokesman Jeff Killeen.

The airport of Tri-State is nine miles west of Huntington in Wayne County, near the Kentucky border.

It is served by two airlines, Comair and US Airways Express, with a half-dozen flights on weekdays.

Huntington residents Shannon and Wayne Bloss and their two sons were heading to Orlando, Florida, for a family wedding.

“It’s not really fear,” she said. “This is such a small airport. I never imagined something like this happening here. It could be worse.”