Someone tried to sneak anti-aircraft ammunition through security at Hawaii's biggest airport inside a thermos flask

• US Air Force bomb disposal was called to Hawaii's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Friday.
• Security found a round of anti-aircraft ammunition inside a thermos in a checked bag.

A checked-luggage room at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Hawaii was evacuated Friday after officials found anti-aircraft ammunition inside a thermos.

The Transportation Security Administration told Business Insider that its X-ray technology flagged a checked bag for a potential security threat.

The agency said that its officers and an explosive specialist reviewed the X-ray image before contacting airport law enforcement.

State sheriffs, the Honolulu Police's bomb squad, and the US Air Force's explosive ordnance disposal unit responded. TSA said they chose to evacuate the room "out of an abundance of caution."

"They identified the suspicious item as a .50 caliber anti-aircraft round of ammunition inside of a thermos," TSA said.

The statement added that operations returned to normal about two hours later at 7:30 a.m.

In October, TSA announced that it expects this year will break the record set last year for the number of firearms intercepted at airport security checkpoints — at an average of nearly 20 per day.

"What we see in our checkpoints really reflects what we're seeing in society, and in society there are more people carrying firearms nowadays," TSA administrator David Pekoske previously told the Associated Press.

Later that month, a Washington state senator was arrested in Hong Kong after he said he accidentally brought an unloaded gun in his carry-on, which wasn't detected when he passed through security in Portland, Oregon.

And back in 2022, the then-congressman Madison Cawthorn was fined $250 after pleading guilty to bringing a loaded handgun through a TSA checkpoint, per CNN.