MANCHESTER, N.H. — Operations are back to normal at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport after the terminal was evacuated as a precaution while a threat was investigated, airport officials said Tuesday.
The airport posted the evacuation notice on Twitter at about 12:45 a.m. It later posted tweets that law enforcement and police dogs conducted security sweeps. Employees and passengers were returning to the building, according to a tweet posted at 1:30 a.m., and airport operations were resuming.
There were no details on the nature of the alleged threat. The airport did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
WMUR-TV reports that Carlton Braley, assistant director of operations and facilities at the airport, said the communications center received a call around 11 p.m. about a threat.
Two planes with a total of 176 passengers were held on the tarmac for a couple of hours, the station reported.
Mark Whitney, of Bedford, who was on an incoming flight from Baltimore, said the pilot announced about a half hour away from landing that “we’re going to need to do a few loops to give the airport some time to recoup because the air traffic controller tower had shut down,” and that it was “nothing other than possibly something COVID-19 related,” he told the station.
Whitney added, “I was like, OK, what could be so severe that there would be police in a COVID-19 incident?”