An electrician was doing renovation work at JFK’s Terminal One on Thursday when he stumbled upon a Mac-11, a subcompact machine pistol that can unload its 32-round magazine in under two seconds.
Port Authority officers were immediately deployed to to scene to run ballistics tests and conduct an investigation, but so far officials aren’t sure how the gun ended up there or how long it had been stowed away. Through testing, they hope to determine if the weapon was ever used in a crime.
According to a statement issued by the Port Authority Police Department, the room where the gun was found is locked, accessible only to a few people and located outside the terminal’s secure area.
The electrician found the weapon in the ceiling of a maintenance closet in the office, ABC News reported, inside a plastic box covered in dust.
Terminal One serves as an international used by Air France, Turkish Airlines, Korean Air and others at JFK, a Queens, NY airport that was ranked the busiest in the world with regards to non-domestic travel in 2011.
The New York Daily News quotes an anonymous source as saying the particular office in the terminal has been untouched for ages, suggesting that the gun could have gone undetected for years.
“The office in the terminal where the gun was found hasn’t been upgraded or renovated since the late 1990s — so the gun could have been hidden there for years,” the Daily News reported.