The second bomb threat against the Cyril E. King Airport on St. Thomas in less than a week shut down air traffic to the island Thursday afternoon.
Officers of the V.I. Police Department’s bomb squad, assisted by Port Authority law enforcement officers, searched the terminal for an explosive that was allegedly placed there. The airport was closed for 30 minutes while the search was in progress.
The threatening call came in to U.S. Customs at 3 p.m. from a man with a West Indian accent who said a bomb at the airport would go off in 15 minutes. The man said, "This is not a joke like the call of last week."
The airport was closed and evacuated immediately.
Thursday’s bomb threat could not have come at a worse time, the peak of the afternoon jet traffic in and out of the airport.
At the time the bomb scare was telephoned in to the airport, three American Airlines 757 jet aircraft were on the ground. Ramp personnel scurried to “push back“ the jets from the terminal. And while the airport was closed, a Delta airlines flight from Atlanta circled around St. Thomas until it could land. A U.S. Air flight was diverted to St. Croix. The airport reopened at 3:40 p.m.
On Saturday a similar bomb threat was called into the airport, forcing the airport to close for almost an hour.
No bombs were found in either incident.

Well-known St. Thomas accountant John A. Babb died Thursday afternoon at the Roy L. Schneider Hospital after being hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit for several weeks.
Babb came to the Virgin Islands from his native Guyana in the early 1970s, working for Hestres and Associates before taking up the newly created position of Senate post auditor, a post he held for several years.
He also served as a key financial adviser to former Sen. Elmo D. Roebuck during his years in the Legislature.
In the early 1980s Babb was on contract with the Farrelly administration, arguing for the return to the territory of the customs duties collected in the Virgin Islands by the federal government. His relationship with Farrelly soured when he appeared before the Senate and assailed the former chief executive for the slow pace at which it proceeded on the issue with the U.S. Customs Service.
Most recently, Babb returned to his private accounting practice before falling ill in the latter part of 1999.
No other details were available Thursday afternoon.

The St. Thomas teen-ager who was shot in the head early Thursday morning in Estate Mandahl has died of his injuries.
Deputy Police Chief Theodore Carty said the victim died about 12 hours after he was wheeled into emergency surgery for massive head injuries.
The second murder victim of the year in this district has been identified as 18-year-old Kareem Setorie. Police released no other information about him.
Mandahl resident Richard Walker had arrived at his home around 1 a.m. to find a red compact car in his driveway. After yelling to the two occupants of the car to leave, he called a friend for help but before the friend arrived, gunfire erupted. Walker said he ran from the area to avoid being hit.
When police arrived at the scene, Setorie was found slumped across the passenger seat of the red Honda Civic with a bullet wound to the head.
Police officials said late Thursday that the case is under active investigation and the department's major crime unit has taken the lead on it. This is the third killing in the territory this year.
Anyone with information should contact police at 774-2196, 774-4050 or the emergency number, 911.

Judi Shimel
More than 200 people have signed up for evening classes being offered this spring through the St. John Beacon School program at the Julius E. Sprauve School.
The 22 current offerings, some academically oriented and others just for fun, cover a lot of ground. There's adult literacy, aerobics, carpentry, ceramics, basic and advanced computer science, drawing, Epic Parenting, quadrille dancing, quilting, sewing, Spanish, stained-glass art, steelband and straw art.
And then there are the "alphabet" offerings — CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation), ESL (English as a second language), GED (general equivalency diploma studies), PET (Potential Employment Training), TOP (Teen Outreach Program) and VIRCD (V.I. Resource Center for the Disabled). Perhaps most important of all are the afterschool tutorial programs for students.
The classes are offered by Beacon Schools of the Virgin Islands, a not-for-profit organization. All Beacon classes are free and open to the public. It's still possible to register for spring classes that aren't already filled.
Program co-director Madeline Sewer says the Beacon offerings have proven popular among old and young alike. The aerobics class that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays has single mothers in their 20s through retirees 60 and over, she said.
Registration for the well-attended quilting class has led to greater participation in the Beacon sewing class. The basic and advanced computer classes are full, Sewer said, even though Internet connection is yet to come. The after-school tutorials for grades 6 through 9 continue to draw 35 to 40 students a semester.
The Beacon Schools program was adopted in the territory in 1997 with the primary objective of providing supervised after-school activities for children of working parents. The program offers educational, recreational and counseling opportunities for children and adults. Initially, one school each on St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix were designated as Beacons — Sprauve, E. Benjamin Oliver and Claude O. Markoe, respectively. Now there are two each on St. Thomas and St. Croix — with the addition of the Addelita Cancryn and Elena Christian Junior High Schools, respectively.
Four days a week, V.I. Resource Center for the Disabled personnel assist primary school students with homework and teach them arts and craft. The Potential Employment Training Program, conducted in cooperation with the Labor Department, helps secondary school students learn how to apply for a job. "The kids are very encouraged by it," Sewer said.
Community service is the focus of Beacon's Teen Outreach Program to help build self-esteem in young people. Nearly 40 teens have parcitipated in TOP since it was introduced. Members develop their own volunteer programs — for example, "during Christmas they solicited donations to make fruit baskets for the senior citizens," Sewer said.
However, Beacon school organizers say they're still trying to find a way to attract adults into their parenting class. This is the fourth time Epic Parenting has been offered. Facilitators help parents develop coping skills to face the challenges of raising a family.
Typically, only four or five participants have signed up for the parenting class, Sewer said. But they've been so enthusiastic in the past that they've often brought pot-luck suppers to share with the other parents, she said.

The husband of a Virgin Islands police officer is reportedly in custody after being arrested Wednesday night on drug-possession charges during an overnight roadblock.
The unidentified man was reportedly taken into custody after officers found a large quantity of cocaine on his person. One source estimated the volume of the illegal drug to be around two kilos.
Other law enforcement sources said a large quantity of money orders purchased at local banks was also confiscated during the search of the man's vehicle.
There are reports that the so-far-unidentified suspect drove up to the area where the roadblocks were being effected but attempted to reverse his vehicle away when he realized it was a law-enforcement operation. He was stopped, his vehicle was searched and he was taken into custody.
Detail on bail information was not available as of publication.
Virgin Islands police have used roadblocks in the past as an anti-crime initiative to intercept illegal drugs and guns.

An 18-year-old St. Thomas man was admitted to emergency surgery at the Roy L. Schneider Hospital early Thursday morning after a confrontation outside a home in Estate Mandahl.
The Source has learned that the unidentified victim, reportedly a robbery suspect in the incident, suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Sources said a Mandahl resident found a red compact car in his driveway when he arrived at home in the pre-dawn hours. He called a friend for help but before the friend arrived, gunfire erupted, reportedly causing injury to one of the suspects.
There was little information available from police Thursday morning about the shooting other than that the victim was transported to the hospital and as of 4 a.m. was listed in critical condition.
No other injuries were reported and it is not clear what the Mandahl resident, who appeared to be the target of a robbery, has told police about the incident that unfolded as he arrived home.
The shooting occurred in the general vicinity of Mandahl Market.
Police have appealed to the community for assistance in solving this latest shooting. Anyone with information should contact investigators at 774-4050 or 911.

The crisis involving the V.I. Occupational Safety and Health Program has been averted, as Gov. Charles Turnbull signed into a law Tuesday almost three quarters of a million dollars for the program.
Turnbull had to call a special session of the Senate last week so it could appropriate $748,428 for the local OSHA program from the Caribbean Basin Initiative Fund. Regional administrators of the federal OSHA program had, according to Turnbull and Labor Commissioner Sonia Jacobs Dow, threatened to take over the V.I operation because of a lack of staff, training and equipment.
The local OSHA program is funded by a 50-50 grant, meaning the V.I. government must match what the federal government provides. Turnbull said that for the last eight fiscal quarters the V.I. government hasn’t been able to meet the match.
At last week’s special session, Dow told senators that Patricia Clark, OSHA’s Region II administrator, had an agenda to "colonize" the local program. Turnbull also noted that a takeover of the program could have opened "the door to other takeovers by the federal government."
"With funding in place, the Department of Labor will now be able to hire staff, provide mandatory training and purchase protective field equipment for compliance personnel," Turnbull said, adding that the appropriation "mutes any effort" to remove the OSHA program from the local government.
Following last week’s Senate session, Clark and a Region II spokeswoman declined to comment in any detail on the issue.

Yet another date has been set for the bribery trial of Innovative Communications Corp. Vice President John Tutein.
The former V.I. senator's trial is scheduled to start Feb. 14 in U.S. District Court on St. Thomas. It was initially to have begun in August but has been postponed several times due to motions filed by his St. Thomas attorney, Treston Moore.
Tutein is accused of offering Sen. Allie-Allison Petrus and his associates cash and a mobile TV van and equipment worth $177,000 for a youth program begun by the senator. Prosecutors contend the offers constituted bribes intended to influence Petrus' vote in May on a proposal put forth by ICC owner Jeffrey Prosser to give the government land on St. Croix and fund various capital projects throughout the territory in return for 30-year tax exemptions for 10 businesses owned by Prosser, including ICC.
Depending on the source, the value of the exemptions to the Prosser-owned businesses was somewhere between $180 million and $3.5 billion. The Senate approved a modified version of the so-called "Prosser deal" on a vote of 8-7, but Gov. Charles Turnbull subsequently vetoed it.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Azekah Jennings said that because of motions made by Moore to dismiss the case and subsequent replies by the prosecution, the trial has taken some time to start. However, he said the legal procedures weren’t unusual.
In several motions Moore has asked to have four of the charges against his client dismissed on grounds of "vagueness and over-breadth." He also said Tutein had the right under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution "to financially support candidates," "to financially support projects that elected officials may support" and "to try to persuade elected officials to. . . support legislation."
Curtis Gomez, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, argued in opposition that Moore’s arguments "stray wide of their target" and "lack any support in law." Jennings said the government is in the process of responding to all of the defense’s motions.

Elections Supervisor John Abramson Jr. said Wednesday he will review the campaign-finance information submitted by Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole before deciding whether additional formal proceedings are necessary.
Abramson presided over a brief hearing Wednesday to determine why the freshman St. Thomas-St. John district senator remains in non-compliance with campaign-finance reporting requirements.
The hearing was called after Abramson said he "had written in excess of a dozen letters to Cole concerning the missing reports" but had gotten no response.
Cole acknowledged in brief remarks during the proceedings that his delinquency was a case of negligence.
"I have no defense," he said. "It was negligence on my part. Instructions were given but not followed."
Cole admitted that he is solely responsible for the delinquency. "When you have an organization, the buck stops at the top."
The formal hearing into a candidate's failure to file required campaign-finance documents is a rare occurrence in the territory, but Abramson said he felt he had to demonstrate a determination to enforce the law.
"Because my approach to the issue of campaign disclosure is one of strict compliance, it is important that we move in this direction to make certain everyone follows the law," he said.
While many candidates, both successful and unsuccessful, have a history of late reporting, Abramson said there is generally compliance.
He said he supports the right of voters to know who backs candidates financially.

Sinbad gave the funk fans — especially those in the Virgin Islands — the news they didn't want to hear Wednesday: There will be no Soul Music Festival this year on St. Thomas, or anywhere else.
In a "Dear Familee" message on his web page, Sinbad confirmed what some folks had suspected for a while: "Due to circumstances beyond our control. . . we will not be having a festival this year. The massive amount of support (sponsors, television exposure, etc.) that is needed to make this event possible is not available this year."
The announcement made no mention of the Virgin Islands, site of last year's fifth annual festival. In part because Aruba had hosted both the third and fourth festivals, and in part because of the huge local turnouts for the three nights of mainstage music last Memorial Day weekend, many Virgin Islanders had hopes that Sinbad would bring the event back to the Lionel Roberts Stadium for a second year.
Sinbad said that cancellation of the 2000 festival "does not mean that there will be no more soul festivals, it just means that there will not be one this year."
As an alternative, he said, he's "working on finding some other cool music festival somewhere that we all can go to." And he noted that many funk fans have already signed up for the Tom Joyner Soul Cruise this year.
Joyner, whose nationally syndicated radio show is carried locally on KISS-FM, did a live broadcast from St. Thomas last year during the soul music fest.
Already, Sinbad said, his organization — with brother Mark Adkins as business manager and sister Donna Adkins as publicist — is "working on getting something together for the year 2001."
In general, the local hospitality industry appeared to fare well during the week of last year's festival, which attracted some 7,000 visitors to the islands. Most St. Thomas hotels reported strong bookings during a normally slow period, and virtually no complaints about the festival organizers or attendees were heard, either during the fest or in its aftermath.
However, there have been no official public accountings of the economic impact of the festival from either the private sector or the government.
Sinbad, in his announcement, appeared to be taking potshots at both Pay-per-View and at least some of the talent featured at former festivals.
"We are currently working on getting last year's festival broadcast again" sometime during Black History Month, he said, but "not Pay-per-View," which was one of the festival's two major sponsors last year (the other was Kmart).
"I am also working on making all five festivals available on CD, videotape and DVD," he said. "It is an issue of music clearances and rights — money — that has to be worked out. . . You just don't know the nightmare of dealing with artists, their lawyers and some publishing companies and what we have to go through."
To read Sinbad's entire website message, click here.