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Updated: 11:37 AM EDT
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Stick of Dynamite Found in Checked Luggage
One of Seven Security Incidents Involving U.S. Flights Friday
By KRISTEN HAYS, AP
HOUSTON (Aug. 26) - U.S. and Argentine authorities were investigating how a stick of dynamite in a college student's checked luggage ended up on a Houston-bound flight, one of seven security incidents that disrupted U.S. flights in a day.
Brian Gavin, Press 22 / AP
Security officials leave an Aer Lingus plane at Shannon International Airport in Ireland Friday. The flight from New York to Dublin was evacuated after a bomb threat.
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There was no indication terrorism was involved in any of the incidents, which caused two flights to be diverted, others to be delayed and passengers to be questioned.
The dynamite was discovered during a baggage search in an inspection station at Bush Intercontinental Airport shortly after Continental Airlines Flight 52 from Argentina landed early Friday.
Argentina's chief of airport security police, Marcelo Sain, said in a televised interview Friday that authorities there were in contact with U.S. officials as they opened their own probe into how the explosive got into the baggage.
The student, 21-year-old Howard McFarland Fish, was charged with carrying an explosive aboard an aircraft and was in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Omero Longoria said Fish told authorities he works in mining and often handles explosives.
"You're in a pressurized airplane, you get a detonation in the cargo hold, it could blow a hole in the airplane big enough to bring it down."
-Bill Waldock, aviation safety professor
Fish's father, Howard, said he is certain his son, who bought the dynamite while visiting a silver mine while traveling in South America, intended no harm.
"It's a 21-year-old kid not paying careful attention to the press and thinking it would be cool to have a piece of dynamite," Howard Fish, of Old Lyme, Conn., said Friday night.
The younger Fish attends Lafayette College in Easton, Pa.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston said he would appear before a federal magistrate Monday. Carrying an explosive aboard an aircraft carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
The incident could have been disastrous and raises questions about security in overseas airports, said Bill Waldock, aviation safety professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, adding that dynamite can be unstable if it's old.
"You're in a pressurized airplane, you get a detonation in the cargo hold, it could blow a hole in the airplane big enough to bring it down," he said.
In other incidents:
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-- An American Airlines flight from England to Chicago was forced to land in Bangor, Maine, after federal officials "learned of a reported threat," FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz said. Marcinkiewicz said no one was arrested but declined to say if anyone from the flight out of Manchester was in custody.
-- A US Airways jet was diverted to Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport after a federal air marshal subdued a disruptive passenger who had pushed a flight attendant, the FBI said.
The passenger was undergoing a mental evaluation, and authorities had yet to determine what criminal charges he might face. The twin-engine jet returned to flight three hours later on its trip from Phoenix to Charlotte, N.C.
-- A Continental Airlines flight from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Bakersfield, Calif., was held in El Paso, one of its scheduled stops, after the crew discovered a missing panel in the lavatory, authorities said.
-- A utility knife was found on a vacant passenger seat of a US Airways flight that had traveled from Philadelphia to Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, state police said. No arrests were made and there were no threats involved, said Master Sgt. J. Paul Vance, state police spokesman.
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-- An Aer Lingus flight from New York to Dublin was evacuated Friday morning during a scheduled stopover in western Ireland following a bomb threat that turned out to be unfounded, officials said.
-- A United Airlines flight out of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was delayed because a small boy said something inappropriate, according to a government official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. "He didn't want to fly," the official said.
The Manchester-to-Chicago flight, American Airlines Flight 55, was diverted to Bangor for security reasons, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Murray said.
Associated Press writers Leslie Miller in Washington and Francis X. Quinn in Bangor, Maine, contributed to this report.
08-26-06 11:32 EDT
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
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