The FBI yesterday detained an unnamed passenger who provoked a two-hour closure of a terminal at Los Angeles International Airport by making a "suspicious comment".

Details are sketchy, but the unnamed man was on Southwest Airlines flight 1182 from El Paso, Texas, when he apparently joked to another passenger that he had explosives in his checked luggage, according to local reports.

A police bomb squad searched him and his luggage on arrival at LAX, "but no weapons or explosives were found", according to airport spokesman Albert Rodriguez.

More than 1,800 passengers on Southwest and US Airways suffered delayed flights before operations returned to normal about 4pm yesterday, the Houston Chronicle notes. ®

Related stories

• FBI screwed up, spied on entire email network (18 February 2008)
• DHS to fit airliners with laser beam defences (8 January 2008)
• German air passenger quaffs litre of vodka (14 December 2007)
• 'Suspicious looking' man hauled off translatlantic flight (12 July 2007)