Box Cutters on Planes 5 Weeks, FBI Says
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By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - **A college student told federal authorities he placed box cutters and other banned items aboard two Southwest Airlines planes nearly five weeks before they were found, according to an FBI (news - web sites) affidavit.
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.
“The writer stated that he smuggled several items on his person and some in his carryon bag,” the affidavit said.
The e-mail provided precise details of where the two plastic bags were hidden — right down to the exact dates and flight numbers — and even provided Heatwole’s name and telephone number. It’s unclear whether Heatwole actually hid items on four other planes.
“The e-mail author also stated that he was aware his actions were against the law and that he was aware of the potential consequences for his actions, and that his actions were an ‘act of civil disobedience with the aim of improving public safety for the air-traveling public’,” the affidavit said.
The affidavit does not say what was done about the e-mail after it was received in September. The bags containing box cutters and other items were not discovered until last Thursday night, after a lavatory on one of the planes had maintenance problems and workers found the banned items.
Heatwole, a junior at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., who is from Damascus, Md., was scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court in Baltimore on Monday afternoon.
Federal authorities planned to charge him with bringing a dangerous weapon aboard an aircraft, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Discovery of the items last week aboard Southwest planes that landed in New Orleans and Houston triggered stepped-up inspections of the entire U.S. commercial air fleet — roughly 7,000 planes. But after consulting with the FBI, the TSA rescinded the inspection order. No other suspicious bags were found in the inspection.
The FBI affidavit said that, in interviews with FBI agents, Heatwole acknowledged writing the e-mail to the TSA to alert authorities to the presence of the bags. He signed printed copies of the e-mail in the presence of FBI agents as well as the notes found in the bags, verifying that he was the author of all three, the affidavit said.
Guilford is a Quaker college with a history of pacifism and civil disobedience that dates to the Civil War. Heatwole is not a Quaker, but shares many of the tenets of their religion, including a belief in pacifism, according to a February 2002 interview with The Guilfordian, the campus newspaper.
and even now they were able to find these items only bcos they were informed by the student. amazing security. 
