Avalon Airport in Victoria was locked down for several hours on Thursday morning after airport security flagged a suspicious package, cancelling flights and prompting police to send in robots before the item was ruled harmless. The incident, first described as a bomb scare, brought travel at the airport to a standstill on May 21, 2026.

The package was later found to contain a laser hair removal device and a cylindrical cardboard hot chocolate container, police said. Victoria Police Inspector Nick Uebergang said the item was first judged suspicious after it was X-rayed by airport security and then inspected further because it was “not to be quite right” in the way it was packed. A specialist robot from the Victoria Police bomb response unit was sent in and confirmed it was non-suspicious.

The owner of the bag was not named, but he said he had bought chocolate powder for friends and his uncle in Sydney and that officers mistook the container for military-grade plastic explosive. “I just got some chocolate powder for my friends and my uncle over in Sydney,” he said. “And they thought this looked like C4.”

He said the disruption lasted about four hours and that he stayed in the car while police questioned him. “And you know, they had me stay in the car for four hours, and asked me a bunch of questions; they thought it was a bomb, and then they realised it wasn’t. Then they said ‘Is it illicit drugs?’. And then they got it tested, and that’s why it took so long,” he said. He also said he was strip searched and that the experience was “wasn’t pleasant.”

Uebergang said the response was slowed because the man who had the bag was not especially cooperative at first. “It’s fair to say, too, that the person who had the bag probably wasn’t too co-operative with us to start off with, too, which made things a little bit difficult,” he said. He added that better information could have shortened the ordeal. “It probably could have averted things, and we could have got out of here a lot quicker. Just he wasn’t giving us too much information at all on what was in his bag,” he said.

The owner took a more resigned view of the response, saying, “I don’t blame them, it’s their job to do that. Shit happens.” But he also said the confusion should be a warning to others: “I want to tell them not to pack their souvenir chocolate in such a suspicious way.” With the robot’s inspection confirming the bag was harmless, the day ended not with an explosive threat but with a reminder that airport security can turn an ordinary piece of luggage into an airport shutdown in minutes.