Low-battery alert delays LaGuardia flight

A "suspicious noise" aboard a US Airways flight at LaGuardia Airport led to a nearly three-hour delay and the unloading of all passengers, officials said Thursday.

The noise turned out to be a low battery alert from a credit card reader used for in-flight passenger purchases, a Port Authority spokeswoman said.

Officials decided to empty Flight 2138 of its 99 passengers and search the plane "out of an abundance of caution," a US Airways spokeswoman said.

By 8:20 p.m. Thursday, authorities had cleared the flight for departure and were reloading passengers onto the aircraft.

The flight, originally scheduled to leave New York for Boston at 6 p.m., was scheduled to take off at 8:45 p.m., the airline spokeswoman said.