"Australian airport evacuated as coffin raises alarm"

Thursday, March 25, 2004 

Airport evacuated as coffin raises alarm
By Brendan Nicholson
Australia - The Age


The freight terminal at Melbourne Airport was evacuated and the bomb squad
called in yesterday after security screening discovered possible explosives
in a coffin about to be loaded onto an aircraft.

The coffin contained a body that was being sent to Croatia aboard a
Singapore Airlines flight early yesterday afternoon.

After the initial test revealed the suspect material, the Victoria Police
response unit was called in to search for a possible bomb.

The body was X-rayed and concern grew as a dark mass of what appeared to be
solid material was identified in the chest cavity. 

However, after further testing last night, police gave the coffin the
all-clear.

A police spokeswoman said the initial swab test indicated a high level of a
suspect chemical compound. 

That led to part of the freight terminal being sealed off. Freight workers
were evacuated about 4pm.

Acting Inspector Phillip Pearson said: "Wherever it (the coffin) had been
stored, there must have been a number of chemicals that gave off a false
reading on the (initial) equipment." 

The flight was delayed only briefly and took off without the coffin, which
was being sent to Croatia from rural Victoria.

The instruments used in the screening process are designed to pick up tiny
traces of common explosives, such as plastic explosive, which can be moulded
and hidden in crevices.

But they also pick up small amounts of ammonium nitrate, a common fertiliser
that is also the main component of explosives widely used for blasting in
the mining industry.

An estimated 2200 kilograms of ammonium nitrate was used in the 1995
Oklahoma bombing, which killed 168 people.

The Age revealed in December that luggage had been removed from aircraft at
Melbourne Airport after minute amounts of fertiliser were found under the
fingernails or on the clothing of enthusiastic rose growers. "False
positives" have also been triggered by honey and hand cream.

The test procedures were introduced in October as part of the response to
the September 11 and Bali terrorist attacks. 

A spokesman for federal Transport Minister John Anderson said yesterday's
incident was well handled by the security officials. 

"We are taking this very seriously," the spokesman said. "This shows how
well the system is working."

Federal officials and Qantas have confirmed that innocent travellers have
been caught out by the security system.


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