Bomb at Miami Port? Nope. Sprinkler Parts

MIAMI _ Concerns that supplies being loaded onto a cruise ship at the Port of Miami-Dade tested positive for plastic explosives evaporated Monday.

The real culprit: sprinkler system parts.

After the items set to be loaded onto the Majesty of the Seas were blown up at 3:30 p.m., federal authorities deemed them harmless, even though they had sparked the second security incident at the port in as many days.

“It was nothing; just sprinkler parts which apparently have the same characteristics as the plastic explosive C-4,” said Miami-Dade police spokesman Robert Williams.

The item, being moved on a pallet, had been screened six times by explosives detection equipment Monday afternoon. Each time, the results were positive for C4, said Coast Guard Petty Officer James Judge.

“Sometimes we get false positives, but we’re not taking any chances,” said Miami-Dade police spokesman Roy Rutland early in the investigation.

The Miami-Dade bomb squad was sent to the port to blow up the suspicious items, said Zach Mann, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Miami. No explosives were detected, just the sprinkler heads.

The incident briefly delayed the departure of the Majesty of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship. Scheduled to set sail at 4 p.m., it left just before 6 p.m. The ship, on a four-night trip with port calls in Nassau and Coco Cay, Bahamas, and Key West, is scheduled to return to the Port of Miami-Dade on Friday.

On Sunday, federal, state and local agents rushed to the port after an Iraqi driver tried to enter the port without proper paperwork. The incident was called a false alarm.

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