Washington – A college student who told authorities he placed box cutters and other banned items aboard two airliners to test security was charged Monday with taking a dangerous weapon aboard an aircraft and was released without bail.
Nathaniel Heatwole, 20, told federal agents he went through normal security procedures at airports in Baltimore and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Once aboard, he said he hid the banned items in compartments in the planes’ rear lavatories. A preliminary hearing was set for Nov. 10.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Harvey Eisenberg said the government was not seeking detention, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan K. Gauvey freed Heatwole on his own recognizance.
Although Heatwole sent an e-mail to federal authorities saying he had placed the items aboard two specific Southwest Airlines flights, it took authorities nearly five weeks to find them.
The judge set a number of conditions for Heatwole’s release, including that he not enter any airport or board any airplane.
Heatwole sat stoney faced during the hearing. His parents were in the courtroom but did not greet or acknowledge him during the hearing and did not comment afterward.
The charge against Heatwole, a junior at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Discovery of the items Thursday 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 But after consulting with the FBI, the Transportation Security Administration rescinded the inspection order and no other suspicious bags were found.
Deputy TSA Administrator Stephen McHale said Monday’s court action “makes clear that renegade acts to probe airport security for whatever reason will not be tolerated, pure and simple.”
“Amateur testing of our systems do not show us in any way our flaws,” McHale said. “We know where the vulnerabilities are and we are testing them … This does not help.”
An FBI affidavit obtained Monday by The Associated Press said Heatwole breached security at Raleigh-Durham airport on Sept. 12 – the day after the two-year anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. He did it again Sept. 15 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the affidavit said.
His bags contained box cutters, modeling clay made to look like plastic explosives, matches and bleach hidden in sunscreen bottles, the affidavit said. Inside were notes with details about when and where the items were carried aboard. They were signed “3891925,” which is the reverse of Heatwole’s birthday: 5/29/1983.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 hijackers used box cutters to take over four airliners, box cutters and bleach are among the items that cannot be carried onto planes.
On Sept. 15, the TSA received an e-mail from Heatwole saying he had “information regarding six security breaches” at the Raleigh-Durham and Baltimore-Washington airports between Feb. 7 and Sept. 14, the FBI affidavit said. The TSA did not send the e-mail to the FBI until last Friday. FBI agents then located Heatwole and interviewed him.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, whose department includes TSA, said officials “will go back and look at our protocol” for handling such e-mails. He said the agency gets a high volume of e-mails about possible threats and that officials decided that Heatwole “wasn’t an imminent threat.”
