Officials Downplaying Latest Box-Cutter Discovery
TSA Official Says Blades Were Probably Left By Workers
POSTED: 12:45 p.m. EST October 29, 2003
UPDATED: 5:32 p.m. EST October 29, 2003
BOSTON -- Officials are insisting that security was never breached at Logan International Airport Tuesday, but an investigation is under way after a utility knife was found aboard a commuter jet from Maine.
NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu reported that federal officials are downplaying the discovery of the knives and razorblade that were found on two U.S. Airways planes in Boston and Philadelphia Tuesday.
A utility knife was found on the Philadelphia plane after it arrived from Houston, and the knife and razor found on a commuter plane that flew in from Portland, Maine.
The flight crew found the objects after the plane's passengers had disembarked.
"The blade was found under seat 1, by itself. It probably could have been dropped from a worker using this as part of a scraping tool, is my guess. And [the] utility knife was found under a seat in row 4 and similarly, this is the typical implement that most maintenance workers use on the airplanes. This is used, as I mentioned, to cut newspaper, open up bales of packaging and also to install carpeting. My guess is they had been on the plane for awhile and just nobody may have seen them," said George Naccara, of the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA.
Naccara said he did not think the blades had been left on the planes in another attempt to test security, as was the case several weeks ago when a student claimed he planted box cutters on an aircraft. Naccara said these were probably left inadvertently, and the government is checking to see if they can locate the workers who may have left them.
"We are looking to check the different locations of the plane to see if a worker left one of these," Naccara said.
But on the same day, a similar knife was found on ANOTHER US Airways flight - this one in Philadelphia on a plane that had just arrived from Houston. Passengers there were evacuated. Federal officials say they doubt there is any connection between the two discoveries.
"I think they should look into it further," traveler Bernadine Houston said.
Following the discovery, Massachusetts State Police and the TSA randomly searched 35 planes at Logan and found nothing.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news...01/detail.html
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