All departing flights at Winnipeg’s James Richardson International Airport were briefly grounded Sunday evening due to an unknown security incident involving baggage.
The airport posted the information to its Twitter account at 5:44 p.m. on Sunday.
Baggage drop areas at the airport were also closed, but reopened about one hour later.
An Air China flight that made an emergency landing on Saturday evening due to mechanical issues was scheduled to depart at 7 p.m., according to the airport’s website.
Local comedian Ryan McMahon was sitting on the tarmac waiting to depart to Toronto.
“They took all the baggage off of every departing plane and rescanned it. They’re starting to reload our plane now,” he told ChrisD.ca about his roughly 30-minute delay.
McMahon’s flight took off at around 6:50 p.m.
ATTN YWG travellers: aircraft movements are gradually resuming and the bag drop area has returned to operation. Thank you for your patience.
— Winnipeg Airport (@YWGairport) June 5, 2016
Original tweets below:
ATTN YWG travellers: We are currently investigating a security incident related to baggage. Outbound flights are delayed while we (cntd)
— Winnipeg Airport (@YWGairport) June 5, 2016
conduct our investigation. We apologize for the interruption. (END)
— Winnipeg Airport (@YWGairport) June 5, 2016
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