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Air passenger charged with having plastic knife
©Associated Press
February 11, 2002
WEST PALM BEACH -- A Palm Beach Gardens man has been arrested after trying to take a homemade 6-inch plastic knife aboard an American Airlines jetliner.
William Martin Powers, 63, was charged with carrying a weapon onto an aircraft on Friday while trying to board a flight to Dallas at Palm Beach International Airport, FBI officials said.
Powers, an electronics specialist traveling to Malaysia, was selected for a random search after he passed through the metal detector checkpoint. During the search, authorities found a plastic shank tied with a cord inside Powers' sleeve, FBI Miami spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said.
"It wasn't a plastic picnic knife. It was a homemade shank," Orihuela said. "It was a weapon. It was not a utensil."
Orihuela declined to release specifics of Powers' statement to investigators, but said he felt he needed the weapon for "security purposes."
Melissa Breese, Powers' stepdaughter, called Powers a "true-blue American." She said he works on oil rigs and frequently travels to countries where his safety is in question.
Powers is scheduled to appear in federal court Monday in West Palm Beach.
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