A postal facility at Kennedy Airport was locked down yesterday when nail-polish remover was mistaken for nerve gas.
Teams of workers in hazmat suits converged on the building near the airport’s perimeter after two customs agents mysteriously fell ill with respiratory distress while inspecting packages at around 9:40 a.m.
Authorities went on high alert after preliminary tests appeared to show the presence of the nerve agent VX — which kills through skin contact or inhalation and is used in weapons of mass destruction.
The liquid had been in a bottle that had apparently broken in transit.
The terror scare ended when the FBI said it “screened and tested the employees and the package they opened.”
“The package in question was determined to be beauty supplies and nothing further,” spokesman J. Peter Donald said.
“The scene has been cleared by FBI personnel.”
A law-enforcement source said the chemical makeup of the nail-polish remover was apparently close enough to compounds in VX to trigger the false positive results.
The package was being shipped by a Long Island beauty-products company called K Max to Australia.
The postal facility and a US Customs building about a quarter-mile away were quarantined until nearly 5 p.m.
Other operations at JFK were unaffected.
Some fliers reported minor delays, although it was unclear if they were related to the scare.
The giant facility at 250 North Boundary Road is used to process mail entering and leaving the country along the Eastern Seaboard.
“The smell was pretty bad,” one worker said.
“They had us all leave, but it was chaotic, and no one would say what it was.”
The two sickened workers were treated at the scene, according to a source.
The false alarm came a week after 19 American embassies and consulates across the Muslim world were closed in response to an intercepted message among al Qaeda officials about plans for a major terror attack.
All but one of the diplomatic outposts were set to reopen yesterday or today — with only the embassy in Yemen remaining closed.
Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan