Man questioned in airport bomb scare
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Airport spokesman Pat Hogan says the FBI found him somewhere in Oregon. Hogan said he did not know which city. The man was questioned but was not arrested, he said.
"He suggests that it was not meant to be a bomb. But the FBI is still investigating and trying to confirm his statements," Hogan said.
Sunday was one of the busiest travel days of the year, and the airport is the headquarters hub for Northwest Airlines, but Hogan said flights were not affected.
The Bloomington Police Department bomb squad detonated the device without incident Sunday afternoon and found it contained no explosive material. But Hogan said it strongly resembled a bomb.
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"It had wires coming out of it, and shrapnel attached, and it was concealed in the cargo area in a way where you wouldn't see it if you were just casually looking into the trunk," he said.
"I've just never seen anything that scared me as much as today did."
A cleaner with Avis Rent A Car found the device while inspecting the recently returned car around 10:30 a.m.
"I've just never seen anything that scared me as much as today did," said Clinton Holder, the Avis manager on duty at the time.
On any given Sunday, Holder said, some 400 vehicles are returned to the airport and searched bumper to bumper before they're rented out again. "They're looking for anything and everything," he said.
Airport security officers with bomb-sniffing dogs swept the airport terminal and the parking garage where the car was returned, but Hogan said they didn't turn up anything else suspicious.
