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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Man charged with bringing pipe bomb on airplane |
| 2008-10-17 |
| This is just insane A Las Vegas man attempted to bring a pipe bomb on board a jet at Long Island MacArthur Airport yesterday morning, federal officials said in court documents. The suspected pipe bomb that was found in Steven Nobles' baggage "could have functioned. It could have detonated," federal prosecutor John Durham said at Nobles' arraignment in U.S. District Court in Central Islip late yesterday afternoon. But Nobles' attorney, federal public defender Randi Chavis, said Nobles, 20, had not intended to harm anyone and inadvertently placed the device in his luggage as he was returning to visit his mother after a year of working on Long Island. Oh, we've all done that at least once, you know. Sources familiar with the investigation said that at this point federal prosecutors and FBI agents do not believe Nobles was bent on terrorism, but, at the very least, displayed poor judgment. I'd say Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for Eastern District U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell, said it was not clear whether the bomb could have gone off accidentally. FBI agents and Suffolk police were still analyzing the device, Nardoza said. Federal magistrate Kathleen Tomlinson denied bail to Nobles, pending a hearing today, saying Nobles "certainly was old enough to take into the account the circumstances under which he was operating this morning." As in 'old enough to fly alone.' According to a complaint filed by FBI agent James McCarthy, Nobles was stopped at 7:28 a.m. by Transportation Security Administration officers during a routine search when they noticed a 7-inch-long knife in his carry-on bag. Nobles was preparing to board Southwest Flight 384 to Las Vegas. That was an accident too. After searching Nobles' bag, the officers then noticed the bomb, McCarthy said. Suffolk Police and the FBI were called and part of the airport was temporarily evacuated. A search of Nobles' luggage found "explosive fireworks, electrical circuit boards, a battery with electrical tape and 14 . . . .22-caliber rounds used in a nailgun to drive nails into concrete," McCarthy said. McCarthy said in the complaint that Nobles told him that "the device in the carry-on bag was a pipe bomb." Nobles also said he "built the pipe bomb using a metal pipe, fuses and gunpowder from M-80 fireworks, smoke bombs and other fireworks," McCarthy said. In addition, the agent said Nobles told him he hoped that when the device went off it would "cause a giant smoke cloud, a flash of light and hopefully a loud noise," McCarthy said. However, Nobles "denied intending to detonate the pipe bomb on the airplane and claimed that he had inadvertently carried it to the airport," McCarthy said. Happens all the time. |
| Posted by:Free Radical |
| #13 You'd have to be born Stupid, Delayed, Retarded, and Dumb as a Rock to Carry a Pipe Bomb On-to a Commercial Aircraft. But I regularly carry a Guillotine, a Full Body Rack, and a Electric Chair on the same Aircraft with no Problemo. You see I NEVER get stopped as there are no explosives or recognizable weapons that the pin-heads can recognize. <:) |
| Posted by: Red Dawg 2008-10-17 23:44 |
| #12 Thank you all for explaining. The silly boy was bringing home lots of ingredients to make a nice boom in the desert. Since they weren't weapons to him, it never occurred to him that anyone else might think they were. I'm glad I'm not his mother. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-10-17 22:31 |
| #11 I'd like to ask him where he was on March 6, 2008. |
| Posted by: DanNY 2008-10-17 22:15 |
| #10 it is nice to know that the FBI has concluded that there is no terrorism here. Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while. |
| Posted by: Abu do you love 2008-10-17 18:18 |
| #9 #3: .22-caliber rounds used in a nailgun to drive nails into concrete I have personaly used such a nailgun, the charges are blanks and come in a variety of strengths depending on the length you want to drive the nail into concrete. The Charges look like .22 shorts, either with a cardboard plug colored to indicate strength, or filded over in a conical point thar somewhat resembles a real bullet, but fools absolutely no one as there is no slug. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-10-17 15:17 |
| #8 Remoteman: as a former TSA supervisor i can say that there is insufficient data here to support your assetion. Depending upon the terminal layout, it is entirely possible that the bag and the pax were separated and the bag was placed in a queue, while the pax and his carry on went on. and since all bags checked bags go through a sniffer for explosive residue, it is very likely it would have been caught, even without any alert based on the carry on incident. i do agree with your assessment of the mentality of the organization as it now exists, however. sadly the go getters that had originally joined at program inception have, for the most part, found better employment elsewhere after getting beat down by Dilbert-like-Pointy-Hair-Boss syndrome. (remember TSA stood up post 9/11, when the economy was in a recession, especially in the airline and related industries, i couldn't buy a job there. but 7 months is all i could take and i bailed. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2008-10-17 14:35 |
| #7 Notice that the crack TSA team saw the knife first and THEN found the bomb. If he'd only had the sense to check the knife, he could have gotten the bomb on board. I'm pretty sure all the TSA staff were the folks who flunked out of toll booth school. Makework program for our under-achievers. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2008-10-17 13:10 |
| #6 TW, some nail guns - especially ones used to drive nails into dense materials - use a .22 (or larger) powder charge to propel the nail (in this case concrete). It could be used as a weapon (if any of you have been around that DS who just has to shoot nails at a work site) especially at close range like a passenger plane. However this alone is something I would think would need to be declared like a firearm would be; nevermind the knife, pipebomb etc. on an early morning trans USA flight... |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-10-17 12:52 |
| #5 Just another case of a Long Island pipe bomb club member getting careless, I guess. It was either that or join the tennis club, but he didn't have the balls for that. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2008-10-17 12:28 |
| #4 Happened to me too. |
| Posted by: Rich Reid 2008-10-17 11:54 |
| #3 .22-caliber rounds used in a nailgun to drive nails into concrete Clearly Mr. Noble planned to have fun exploding things out in the desert. But why have a nailgun shoot .22 caliber rounds? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-10-17 11:51 |
| #2 Is criminal stupidity a crime? I don't care if his intent wasn't terrorism, we go through crazy bag checks and every journalist or stupid idiot like this guy that sends a false-positive through the system should be punished. Maybe a month, maybe a year I don't know but something. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-10-17 11:19 |
| #1 Science fair project? Present for mom? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-10-17 09:23 |