FBI: Working Hard?
Charles Johnson
Mon Oct 20, 2003 at 10:36 am PDT • Views: 236
The box cutters and other items smuggled onto Southwest Airlines flights by a college student were sitting on those planes for five weeks. (Hat tip: zulubaby.)
The affidavit, obtained by The Associated Press, said Nathaniel Heatwole, 20, told agents he went through normal security procedures at airports in Baltimore and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and was able to carry the forbidden items onto the planes.
Once aboard, he hid the items in a compartment in the rear lavatories of two planes.
The first bag was carried on in Raleigh-Durham on Sept. 12 — the day after the two-year aniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks — and the second on Sept. 15 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the affidavit said.
Each bag contained a note detailing when and where the bags were carried aboard, as well as modeling clay simulated to look like plastic explosives, matches and bleach hidden in sunscreen bottles.
On Sept. 15, the Transportation Security Administration received an e-mail from Heatwole stating he had “information regarding six security breaches” at the Raleigh-Durham and Baltimore-Washington airports between Feb. 7 and Sept. 14, the FBI affidavit says.
UPDATE: LGF reader lawhawk points out that the bumbling agency in this case is not the FBI, but the Transportation Security Administration.
Frank says: