Security personnel scrambled to deal with a shooting incident at a Florida airport amid reports that at least nine people had been shot and the gunman taken into custody. Reports said one person may have been killed.

Ari Fleischer, the one-time press secretary to former president George W Bush, was among the first to alert people to the sound of shooting, as he passed through Fort Lauderdale International Airport.

“I'm at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. Shots have been fired. Everyone is running,” he wrote. “The police said there is one shooter and five victims.”

He later added: “All seems calm now but the police aren't letting anyone out of the airport - at least not the area where I am.”