A sex toy was mistaken for a grenade at Berlin’s Schonefeld Airport on Tuesday, causing a terminal to be closed, according to CNN .
A bag was being scanned as part of a routine security check at the airport when security noticed “suspicious content in a luggage piece,” according to federal police in Berlin quoted by CNN . Airport employees were not able to determine what was in the bag, so the airport issued an alert just before 11 a.m. local time.
The terminal was shut down so authorities could investigate the luggage.
“Due to police investigation concerning a piece of baggage, check-in at Terminal D is currently restricted,” tweeted the airport, according to The Independent .
Authorities called for the owner of the bag over the airport loudspeaker.
Eventually, authorities spoke to the bag’s owner, who was initially reluctant to describe the contents of his luggage. At first, he told authorities that his bag had “technical stuff,” according to Newsweek . This may have been due to embarrassment, according to a federal spokesperson interviewed in CNN .
After an hour-long investigation which included the bomb squad, authorities determined that the item in question was a vibrator.
“After 60 tense minutes, [the member of the bomb squad] returned laughing. The hand grenade was in fact a vibrator from Ann Summers that my girlfriend and I had purchased two weeks previous,” the passenger said to RT .
Passenger note #SXF airport: Due to police investigation concerning a piece of baggage, check-in at Terminal D is currently restricted. https://t.co/pRtVsNgEHh
— BER – Berlin Brandenburg Airport (@berlinairport) August 7, 2018
The bag owner admitted the vibrator was a gift for his girlfriend. Authorities let him continue his travel with the toy still in his luggage.
The airport was reopened at noon.
After the investigation, the airport tweeted, “Police investigation is over. Terminal D reopened. However, further impairments in passenger handling possible.”
This is not the first German airport security incident this week.
Earlier today, the Frankfurt Airport, which is the busiest airport in Germany, was evacuated after a family that tested positive for explosives was allowed to leave security, according to Newsweek . Police eventually found the family, but not before the airport was evacuated for more than two hours, which impacted 7,000 passengers.
Police said the security issue was caused by “an error by a security officer,” according to the BBC .
In late July, a passenger avoided the security check at the Munich airport, leading to the cancellation of 300 flights. The security oversight wasn’t discovered until the passenger had already boarded a plane and the flight had departed. More than 30,000 passengers were impacted because of the incident, according to The Independent .
This is one of the busiest months of the year for European travel, according to CNN .
