Sex toys cause closure of German airport terminal

Various sex toys, including a vibrator, were mistaken for a bomb, causing a partial closure at Berlin's Schnefeld Airport on Tuesday.

Employees at the airport were conducting routine X-rays of luggage when they spotted "suspicious content in a luggage piece," according to the federal police in Berlin.

Because it was unclear from the initial scan what the bag contained, an alert was issued shortly before 11 a.m., resulting in the closure of the airport's D terminal while police investigated the suspicious items.

The owner of the bag was called over the airport speaker system and eventually talked to police about his luggage.

However, he was reluctant to properly explain the contents of the bag -- possibly because of embarrassment, according to a federal police spokesperson -- saying instead that his luggage contained "technical stuff."

After an hour-long investigation involving a bomb squad, authorities eventually determined that the items were sex toys.

The airport's D terminal was reopened at noon.

The incident came on the same day that Frankfurt Airport -- Germany's busiest airport -- was evacuated after a family that tested positive for explosives was mistakenly allowed to leave the security area.

The security slip in Frankfurt affected over 7,000 passengers.

Both incidents came during the one of the busiest months for travel in Europe, as many people are on vacation.

In 2016, the latest year with available data, nearly a quarter of the 1.2 billion pleasure trips taken by Europeans occurred in July and August.