Threat causes Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport to be shut down

Thursday morning was a hectic one as Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport was evacuated due to an emailed threat. News 25 caught up with a passenger and the executive director for the airport to see how the situation was handled.

Clay Williams, Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport’s Executive Director, said he’s thankful for the agencies who responded to the email threat. He said, “We were able to get our first responders here in a very prompt fashion. We want to thank them.”

The airport was evacuated Thursday morning after receiving the emailed threat just before 9:30.

“Anytime you have a threat of this nature, you want to make sure all precautions are taken,” explained Williams. “And so, again, we work very closely with a number of our agency partners. And again, we appreciated not only the agencies responding in such an expeditious fashion, but we also had teams do a thorough sweep of the area.”

About 200 passengers and airport employees were evacuated from the terminal building. Also, some planes headed for Gulfport-Biloxi International were diverted to other airports.

“Once we evacuated the terminal building, it was about 9:30 a.m. approximately, and we had passengers back in the building about 11:15,” said Williams.

One passenger WXXV spoke to said he was on a flight to Gulfport, but it had to be diverted to Mobile, Alabama’s airport.

“We were on the plane, ten minutes from landing and the pilot came on and said there was a security issue in Gulfport,” explained Tim Copeland. “And that we were going to have to pull up and not land. 30 minutes later, we were rerouted to Mobile, and landed in Mobile, and then drove back over here to Gulfport.”

Things are back to normal, with the day seeing only a few delays, and zero cancellations. Williams says agencies are investigating the threat and where it possibly came from.