Boston airport officials called in a bomb squad after a 'suspicious' device sparked panic but turned out to be a defective PlayStation

• A terminal at Boston Logan International Airport was evacuated after a "suspicious" device was found.
• The device turned out to be a defective PlayStation, which showed abnormalities when X-rayed.

Passengers at Boston Logan International Airport were ordered to leave a terminal due to a "suspicious" device, which was later discovered to be a defective PlayStation.

NBC News first reported the story.

In a video shared on Twitter by a passenger, an airport employee can be heard telling people to leave through a secure checkpoint to be rescreened by TSA agents. People are seen appearing to head toward the checkpoint.

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The person addressing passengers can be heard saying: "You have to exit, this is mandatory."

—Mohamed (@BattleBornLV) April 17, 2022

In a statement to Insider, Massachusetts State Police said their bomb squad had been called after security staff spotted a suspicious item in a bag while it went through a screening of checked luggage.

The statement said: "TSA agents at Logan Airport Terminal A who were screening checked luggage for a Delta flight observed a potentially suspicious item in a bag and requested that the State Police Bomb Squad respond."

Boston Logan International Airport did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Troopers responded and, "after investigation and research, determined that the item was a PlayStation video game console with a degraded condition caused by age or damage," the statement added.

Insider reached out to Sony for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The console was apparently in a degraded condition, which caused abnormalities in imaging when it was X-rayed, the police said in their statement. They gave the all-clear shortly after 5 p.m., local time.

Nico Pisello, a passenger who was present at the time, told NBC News that people panicked, ran, and left their belongings behind. He also saw a man fall down during the confusion.

He said: "Right out of nowhere, I see the whole crowd, people yelling and screaming like it was out of a movie. No one knows what's going on."