"French police lose 150 grams of plastic explosives at Paris CDG"

Saturday, December 4, 2004

French police misplace explosives on jet
The Associated Press


PARIS -- Police at Paris' top airport lost track of a passenger's bag in
which plastic explosives were placed to train bomb-sniffing dogs, police
said Saturday. Warned that the bag may have gotten on any of nearly 90
flights from Charles de Gaulle, authorities searched planes upon arrival in
Los Angeles and New York.

French police said the explosives were harmless and there was no chance of
their going off, since no detonators were connected to them.

More than 300 passengers were evacuated and their luggage searched when
their Air France flight from Charles de Gaulle arrived in Los Angeles late
Friday the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said

Two Air France and one American Airlines flight to Paris were also searched
in New York City, TSA spokesman Norm Brewer said. No explosives were found
on any of the flights.

French police at Charles de Gaulle deliberately placed up to five ounces of
plastic explosives into a passenger's luggage Friday evening, police
spokesman Pierre Bouquin said.
 
But a "momentary lack of surveillance" led to the bag being lost on a
conveyor belt carrying luggage from check-in to planes, he said.

Authorities immediately alerted the relevant airlines that one of between 80
and 90 planes that left the French capital from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday
could be carrying the explosives, Bouquin said.

Four of the flights were en route to the United States, while others were
headed to places like Japan and Brazil, Bouquin said. Some were domestic
French flights. The flight searched in Los Angeles was delayed two to three
hours before continuing on its next leg to Tahiti in the South Pacific.

"These dogs must be trained in the most realistic situation possible ... to
be the most effective," Bouquin said.

"Indeed, it's possible that someone will have a surprise when he opens his
bag."


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