Laser hair removal device sparks bomb scare at Melbourne airport

Melbourne’s Avalon Airport was partially shut down for several hours on Thursday after a laser hair removal device and a hot chocolate container sparked a bomb scare.

Police were called to the airport, located about 50km (31miles) south-west of Melbourne, just before 06:00 local time (20:00 GMT Wednesday) when a suspicious package was found during security screening, prompting domestic flights to be delayed. International flights were not impacted.

The bomb squad checked the package which turned out to be a laser hair removal device and a box for hot chocolate, police said.

The package’s owner was initially detained and later released. The airport reopened about four hours later.

Victoria Police Acting Inspector Nick Uebergang said the situation had lasted longer due to the man’s behaviour.

“The person who had the bag wasn’t too cooperative with us to start off with,” he said, which made “things a little bit difficult”.

“They probably could have averted things and we could have got out of here a little bit quicker.”

The man, who was from Melbourne, was not charged, police said.

An airport spokesperson said the response to the security scare “demonstrates the vigilance of the screening and security processes” and precautionary measures were “taken immediately to ensure the safety of passengers, staff and the broader community”.

Several passengers who spoke to local media described the scenes at the airport while it was in lockdown.

“We arrived at the airport around 7am and they had just put up the closure. No one sort of knew what was going on,” one passenger told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“We knew something was fairly significant because there were a lot of police cars and other sort of cars going into the airport.”

Manjeet Singh said he was told to wait in the carpark when he arrived at the airport to catch a flight to Brisbane due to a “security incident”.

“There’s no arrangements, no bathroom, no toilet, no beverages, no nothing,” he told The Age.

Budget airline Jetstar, a subsidiary of Qantas, operates domestic and international flights from Avalon Airport, Victoria’s second busiest air hub.

Two domestic flights – one to Sydney and another from Sydney – were cancelled while several others were delayed.