Physics Science Scare Shuts Airport

The theme of the summer meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers is Communicating Physics Outside the Classroom. Unwittingly that’s exactly what a participant from Oregon did. A PhD student shut down the entire airport in Omaha, Nebraska where Creighton University was hosting the week long conference.

Around noon yesterday TSA agents found a suspicious item in a piece of carry on luggage during a routine x-ray screening. They immediately evacuated the entire terminal and made several hundred people stand outside until they could determine the threat level.

FBI spokeswoman Sandra Breault says, “The device had a legitimate purpose and was harmless but had a suspicious appearance, which triggered an appropriate response by TSA and law enforcement.”

Breault said the student is working on a doctorate, but did not release the student’s name or other details — such as the type of science project that prompted the scare. Conference organizers also refused to identify the student, who authorities say was embarrassed for inconveniencing so many people.

When Michael Cherney saw the news, he had a feeling it was related to his physics teachers conference.

He says, “We didn’t get much coverage during the week and this probably brought us more attention than the time we had the 1,000 people here.”

Omaha field office agent Weysan Dun says no crime was committed and the item had an innocent purpose. He did say it was, “related to a university level science project.”

Dr. Cherney says the conference was about teaching everything from mechanics to electronics to optics. He says the item that caused all the commotion probably had a lot of electronics attached to a little box.

He is disappointed that despite having 1,000 physicists and physics teachers descend on Omaha for a week there was very little community coverage about the conference except for the accidental media attention that one participant drew at Eppley Airfield.