By PHILIP MESSING, JOHN DOYLE, and JANON FISHER
A lunatic terrorist wanna-be cleared out LaGuardia Airport this morning after police spotted him with a wire-laden backpack that ran to a trigger device on his hand, law enforcement sources said.
The contraption that caused the bomb scare -- taped-up batteries designed to look like a deadly explosive detonator -- was just a phony, police said.
That didn't stop the crazed man, identified as Scott McGann, 32, from repeatedly clicking the trigger after Port Authority police officers Bobby Keane and Thomas Sullivan began questioning him around 5:30 a.m. at Terminal C Concourse B, setting off a mad scramble as hundreds of people fled for safety.
Keane and Sullivan then tackled the deranged man and started ripping the wires off his arm in a desperate attempt to prevent a calamity.
"He never said a word," said one law enforcement source. "He didn't even grunt."
McGann "was just acting crazy," said PA spokesman John Kelly.
McGann first approached a ticketing desk.
He had a United Airlines boarding pass for a flight headed to Chicago, with later connecting flights that would have brought him to Oakland.
But a woman working the desk then called PA police, saying the man looked "strange and suspicious."
The Port Authority police also received two other calls about the man, with one person calling him "intoxicated," and calling him "suspicious."
That led TSA security guards and Port Authority police to stop the McGann in the terminal -- they described him as "uncooperative and non-communicative."
One eyewitness said he was already sitting near the security gates when he arrived earlier that morning.
"They were searching him in a corner over there. It looked hike he was homeless. He was carrying a beige backpack and wearing a fishing hat where the brim goes all the way around," said Angel Matias, a cook at the Jet Rock Bar and Grill in the airport, who watched police apprehend the man.
Passengers said the terminal descended into utter chaos.
"People are fighting and people are cutting into lines," said Flushing resident Arthur Schwarz, who was supposed to be on a flight to Toronto. "It's textbook pandemonium."
As luggage-toting passengers lined up along the roadway outside the terminal, cops arrested the unidentified man, and officers from the NYPD Bomb Squad searched his bag.
The bomb squad then doused the bag with a water cannon -- a move that could disarm a potentially live bomb.
They found a few batteries and wires, but nothing dangerous, police said.
Police are sweeping the main terminal and have reopened it. Kelly said the C Concourse, serving United, United Express and American Eagle airlines, would remain closed as a crime scene.
Additional reporting by Angela Montefinese and Tom Namako
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Por decisão das autoridades de Nova York, o terminal C do  foi evacuada às 05:30 (hora local, 09:30 GMT), logo que fora encontrado uma bagagem suspeita no interior dos quais era uma alegada bomba.

A polícia considerou Scott McGann, de 32 anos, como suspeito, porque levava uma mochila da qual saíram os cabos e um dispositivo com um botão na mão. Além disso, chamou a atenção dos guardas ao comportar-se de maneira estranha ao mostrar seu bilhete de  com destino a  via .

Jack Kelly, porta-voz da Autoridade Portuária de Nova York e Nova Jersey, disse que o suspeito estava "emocionalmente perturbado" e afirmou que levava consigo fios e baterias. Segundo Kelly, "o homem está detido e a bomba não é nenhuma bomba." Na verdade, uma esquadrão anti-bombas abordou a bagagem de McGann, onde havia uma bomba falsa.

Apesar dos atrasos que gerou em todo o país, três horas depois de evacuá-la parcialmente, o aeroporto funciona normalmente, embora o terminal C continuará fechado até que terminem as investigações pertinentes.