Kansas City, Mo. ? Almost 300 passengers were removed from three gates at Kansas City International Airport and sent through security again, after a pocket knife was found in a passenger’s carry-on bag.

Security officials discovered the small knife at a preliminary checkpoint Friday evening and gave the passenger, who identified himself to The Associated Press as Ron Baron of Larkspur, Colo., the option of turning it over or going back to the terminal to ship it, said spokesman Tony Molinaro of the Federal Aviation Administration central region in Chicago.

Baron walked away only to make it through another checkpoint later, Molinaro said. Then, once in the gate where random secondary searches are performed, he gave the knife to authorities, Molinaro said.

Sending the 278 passengers back through security screenings, which turned up nothing, caused delays of up to an hour for three Vanguard Airlines flights, Alan Carr, the airline’s spokesman, said Saturday. The small, regional carrier operates the three gates.

Both FAA and airline officials declined to identify the passenger with the knife.

Baron said he was questioned and released by airport police.

The airline did not allow him to board his Friday evening flight to Denver, but he was allowed to fly Saturday out of Kansas City, Carr said.

Baron said he often travels with a knife, but had forgotten it was in that bag. He told the AP Friday night that a guard found the knife in his bag but allowed him to carry it into the gate anyway.

“He whispered in my ear, ‘I sure hope you’re not an FAA investigator, but I put the knife back into (a certain pocket) of your bag,”‘ Baron said in a telephone interview.

Baron then notified top security officials.

“If the guy was going to let me through with the knife, there’s no telling what someone else made it through with,” Baron said.

Carr said security personnel disputed the passenger’s version of events.