3 security alerts hit jittery US air travel

Written By DNA Web Team | Updated:

Three security alerts involving United States flights on Friday highlighted the tension surrounding air transport across the country, with one passenger found carrying explosives and two planes diverted.

Updated at 3.50 am

WASHINGTON: Three security alerts involving United States flights on Friday highlighted the tension surrounding air transport across the country, with one passenger found carrying explosives and two planes diverted.

The security alerts come two weeks after British police said they had thwarted an alleged plot to blow up US-bound transatlantic airliners with liquid explosives smuggled on board in drinks containers.

In one incident, a male passenger was detained in Houston, Texas as he was found with dynamite in his checked baggage after he disembarked from a Continental Airlines flight from Buenos Aires, US officials said.

In the second, an American Airlines jet flying from Manchester, England to Chicago was diverted to Bangor, Maine after US authorities learned of a reported threat to the aircraft, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

A third jet operated by US Airways and bound for Charlotte, North Carolina out of Phoenix, Arizona was diverted to Oklahoma City after an unruly passenger was subdued, Transportation Security Administration sources said.

US and Argentine officials said the man arrested in Houston had a stick of dynamite and other explosive devices.

The US college student from Connecticut was being detained and could face charges, said FBI Agent Shauna Dunlap.

"We are not certain of his motives, but carrying an explosive device onto an aircraft is a violation of law," Dunlap said.

"There was a stick of dynamite, there were some other items," she said, declining to give further details, citing an ongoing investigation.

One US law enforcement source said on condition of anonymity that the explosives may have had something to do with the man's connection to the mining industry.

In Maine, FBI investigators started interviewing all the passengers on the American Airlines flight once it landed, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said.

The TSA "learned of a reported threat to the aircraft while it was en route," Kolko said.

"Given the threat level, the agency, along with other federal agencies took prudent action to assure the safety of the aircraft and its crew," Kolko added.

TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said plane was being searched by sniffer dogs, and FBI agents were interviewing all the passengers and crew.

The aircraft, which was carrying 179 people in total, was parked at a remote location and the passengers were being held in a secure room at the airport, Bangor Airport spokeswoman Rebecca Rupp told Fox News.

She could not say if there had been any incidents on board the plane during the flight, but confirmed that the baggage had been removed from the plane.

In the incident involving suspected explosives, the Continental flight continued on to Newark Airport, New Jersey, after the passenger was detained in Texas.

Although the man's baggage was removed from the plane, authorities ordered a precautionary security sweep of the aircraft.

"He was going through the customs area when they detected some explosive residue," TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said.

"That individual is now being held by the FBI," she said, adding that explosives-sniffing dogs had been brought in to check the passenger's baggage.

No details were available of the man's identity or nationality.

The incidents come more than two weeks after British police said they foiled a bomb plot and shortly ahead of the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Twelve people have been charged over the alleged London plot, while there have been a flurry of false alarms in recent days.