Brisbane Airport Shutdown For Bomb Threatening, Knife-Wielding Man

Police have a man in custody who threatened to use explosives at Brisbane International Airport.

On Saturday night, a man supposedly walked into the airport brandishing knives and chased a woman in the pre-security food court area. He then carried a box with exposed wiring into the departures area claiming it was a bomb.

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Brisbane International Airport was shutdown and evacuated at 9 p.m.

Perth Now reported that Superintendent Tony Fleming said that two women and children known to the man were involved in the incident and cited it as a “traumatic event” for witnesses.

“We had some concern (the device) may have been an explosive device. This device and his demeanor gave us cause for concern,” Fleming said.

Passenger Boon Heng Ong claimed to be the first to hear a woman screaming which alerted passengers to the danger. Ong told The Courier Mail, “I heard the woman yelling, it started with her yelling, ‘Help, help police, police’, and she just ran away and the guy was chasing her.”

“They were heading towards outside the airport, and then he just pulled out the knife. It was quite big, 15 to 20 cm. He was running after her with it. He was big and was a bad runner. They were running really fast.”

Ong added, “He stopped running and turned around and walked back to a table in the food court. He grabbed something out of his luggage. It was a black box like a small toolbox."

“And everyone was just screaming and running, ‘Get out, get out’.”

The man was shot by police with non-lethal rounds and was uninjured despite being hit in the torso. No other passengers or bystanders were injured in the incident.

Queensland police reported that the device he carried was harmless and that this was not a terrorist-related incident, but rather “domestic violence related.”

He was questioned by police, but it is still unclear the reasoning behind his actions.