According to Ned Donovan, a journalist who was in the airport to witness the situation, airport authorities detonated the suitcase full of tropical fruit in the airport's Terminal 3 at about 1pm on Monday.
According to Donovan, the terminal was practically shut down while officials addressed the coconut debacle. “They stopped anyone going airside while dealing with it and no one was allowed to come into the terminal," Donovan told the Independent. “But the people inside were just left to wander around.”
The terminal of Italy's largest airport was not at a standstill for long — the entire situation reportedly lasted about 15 minutes.
"There’s so much about this incident that I enjoyed and also felt so Italian," Donovan tweeted. "They blew up what they thought was a bomb in the middle of the airport while people were about 10 metres away, and then when it was destroyed the police just wandered off and left it to be cleaned up."
The situation didn't seem to have caused a panic among passengers, unlike a mock explosive device that was found at a security checkpoint in Newark Airport (EWR) and shutdown the terminal for an entire morning.
